Here's a heartwarming tale of piracy and derringer-do that will shiver your timbers.

Today I visited New Brighton, across the Mersey from Liverpool, and a place I used to be taken as a treat by my Mum and Aunt when I was a wee nipper.

It's a classic English seaside place, with a promenade, deck chairs for hire, amusement arcades, ice cream parlours etc and so on. Today it is blissfully free of cars for many a mile, being pedestrian only.

The sands are golden (the Meresy is a lot cleaner than it used to be!), and a focal point - despite all the standard attractions - is a driftwood pirate ship on the beach called The Black Pearl. It was constructed by local artist Frank Lund and a friend, and proved an instant hit with kids both local and visiting.

But wouldn't you know it, on 23 May this year some scumbags decided it would be jolly fun to set fire to it. It was almost completely destroyed. but what these low-lifes hadn't reckoned on was the community spirit. Within a week the local community had hauled together and rebuilt the Black Pearl.

As the local Liverpool Echo newspaper reported after the fire,: Frank had been unsure whether to immediately set about building a new pirate ship but said he had been inspired by the reaction to its destruction and had been approached by a number of people who wanted to help reconstruct it. He said: "There has been a real upsurge in feeling.

"We'll wait and see what happens.

"I had a guy come down with his daughter saying she wanted to donate her pocket money to help rebuild it.

"It's shown the strength of feeling in the local community.

"We had a school come with five and six-year-old 'pirates', bringing messages saying 'we will help rebuild your pirate ship'. Then they had a pirate picnic and played some games.

"There has been real outrage from local people and even people farther away who have heard about it - we have had people, adults, on the beach in tears."

But, only a few days ater, the ship rode the sands once again, within sight of the docks and the city the German bombers tried to destroy during the Second World War. They sank a few ships, sure, but not the spirit. The arsonists might have won a battle, but they haven't won the war. Churchill would have been proud.