The world's last surviving steam drifter celebrates her 92nd birthday this weekend.

The Lydia Eva boasts a colourful life including a long spell working for the armed forces, a name change hiding her true identity, and a blockbuster movie role.

Despite her fame, her service as a herring drifter was relatively short, spanning just eight years from when she was launched on June 26, 1930, by her owner Harry J Eastick's daughter, her namesake Lydia Eva.

She went on to spend some 30 years working for the armed forces under the name Watchmoor steaming all around the coast.

She was restored in the 1970s and joined heritage vessels at St Katherine's Dock, but was abandoned again due to a lack of funds.

A trust to save her was formed in 1989 and she was brought back home and restored for a second time. She is moored in South Quay, Yarmouth, as a free-to-enter floating museum.

On Sunday (June 26) at 10.30am her boilers will be fired in celebration with borough mayor Graham Plant and various dignitaries joining the party.

Ship's manager Ernie Artis said plans to mark her 90th in style had been scuppered by Covid.

This being the first birthday post-pandemic they thought they would try to make something of it, he added.

There were several points along her long life which could have taken a drastic, even terminal turn, he said, making her story of survival all the more remarkable.

The ship always needed volunteers to help with guiding and maintenance, as well as donations, he said.

After her stint filming in Lyme Regis a flurry of repairs and a period in a dry dock cost over £30,000, adding to the usual running costs of keeping her as floating museum in her home port of Yarmouth, even though - because of a strike - she was actually built in King's Lynn.

Her boilers were last fired up in March in order for movie makers to film close-ups of her machinery in action.

The charitable trust's other historic vessel The Mincarlo, built in Lowestoft, turns 60 this year.

The two ships are billed as "living reminders" of East Anglia's fishing heritage.