PENDENNIS PAGE / Mike Truscott

Prince Andrew, Duke of York, has again been the subject of unwelcome media attention in recent months, and his Cornish connections remind us that his flair for attracting the “wrong” kind of publicity goes back a very long way, writes Mike Truscott.

In the build-up to his marriage to Sarah Ferguson – 29 years ago next month– the Packet went to town with a special supplement that recalled his time at RNAS Culdrose.

He had been based there for three years, for his helicopter pilot training, and, as reporter Stephen Ivall noted, people even then called him “Randy Andy” and spoke of “his many girlfriends.”

It was no secret that some of his shipmates had “soon become fed up with him,” calling him “pompous and stuck up.”

Steve quoted one trainee colleague at Culdrose: “He can’t forget his background.” And another: “He will have to change his ways if he wants to make any real friends here.”

Happily, he “did just that” and gained the “full support” of his colleagues. He also “managed to get out and about”, with Helston’s Angel Hotel and the Helford area’s Shipwrights and New Inn being among his favourite drinking venues.

But the Packet also reflected: “It was inevitable that while the Prince was at Culdrose a scandal would break. So it did one morning when it was discovered a couple of strippers had spent the night at the air station following a party.”

The Packet did not directly link the Prince with any of it, merely reporting: “The party was in one of the NCO’s messes, and the strippers refused to talk about their escapades. So, too, did the NCOs, but some faced disciplinary action soon afterwards.”