One of the largest paddle steamers afloat in Britain is the H.M.S. Royal Eagle, former peacetime excursion boat which carried passengers on pleasure jaunts from Tower Bridge to Southend, Ramscate and Margate. Commissioned two years ago as a warship of the Royal Navy, the craft has been in action 52 times against enemy aircraft. The Eagle took part in the evacuation from Dunkirk where she was dive-bombed 48 times and brought home nearly 3,000 British troops. Members of the crew cleaning the paddle boxes of H.M.S. Royal Eagle in London on January 18, 1943. (Photo by AP Photo)

British holidaymaker Sean Chinn captures a crocodile on camera during a dive at the Jardines de la Reina marine park in Caribbean Sea, Cuba. (Photo by Sean Chinn/Caters News Agency)

A greyhound dog dressed up in a festive costume on Buchanan Street in Glasgow on December 24, 2023. (Photo by Michael McGurk/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

“Originally published in the April 9, 1951, issue of LIFE magazine, W. Eugene Smith’s photo essay, «Spanish Village», has been lauded for more than six decades as the most moving photographic portrait ever made of daily life in rural Spain during the rule of dictator Francisco Franco”. – Time & Life Pictures. Photo: His wife, daughter, granddaughter and friends have their last earthly visit with a villager. (Photo by W. Eugene Smith/Time & Life Pictures)

Ayaka Oshita, a 27-year-old diver, practices in preparation for the upcoming seasonal feeding performance as a Santa diver at Sunshine Aquarium at Ikebukuro in Tokyo, Japan, 07 December 2021. Oshita has 15-month experience for feeding fish at the aquarium after she joined the aquarium in 2019. The Santa diver performance will be held for three days around the Christmas time. The aquarium will not inform the performance time to avoid the visitors' crowd due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo by Kimimasa Mayama/EPA/EFE)

A volunteer poses for a photograph with a snowman depicting the Beijing Winter Olympics mascot Bing Dwen Dwen at National Biathlon Centre in Zhangjiakou, China on February 13, 2022. (Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

Afghans pass a clothing storein Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, October 12, 2021. (Photo by Ahmad Halabisaz/AP Photo)

A member of staff at Morton & Eden holds an extremely rare early Islamic gold coin on Thursday September 12, 2019, which is expected to fetch £1.4m at auction in London. Measuring a 20mm across, about the size of a modern £1 piece, it is one of the world's rarest and most treasured Islamic gold coins from the first dynasty of Islam, the Umayyad gold dinar dated 105h (723AD). (Photo by Victoria Jones/PA Images via Getty Images)