HMS Cavalier - the wartime destroyer that wouldn't die - goes on display to the public today, a happy ending to a disastrous plan for a North-East maritime museum.

When South Tyneside Council paid £90,000 for the 2,500 tonne vessel 14 years ago she was to be the centrepiece of a shipbuilding exhibition centre jointly funded by the council and private enterprise.

The North-East has a proud history of shipbuilding and the old destroyer - the last of her kind - was berthed at the former Hawthorn Leslie yard, where the famous HMS Kelly, Lord Mountbatten's ill-fated destroyer, was built.

The centre was to be the lynch pin of a development including shops, hotels and an interactive shipyard.

Unfortunately the plan never went ahead. The cash never arrived, the National Lottery washed its hands of the idea and the ship became an embarrassing liability.

Attempts to sell her to a consortium planning a similar development in Malaysia also came to nothing. HMS Cavalier became the ship nobody wanted.

Just as it seemed the breakers' yard beckoned, the ship was saved by a Lottery funded bid from Chatham Historic Dockyard, in Kent.

When the ship suffered the indignity of being towed out of the dock - her engines having being removed - the idea of a North-East maritime attraction went with her.

She was placed in the Number Two dry dock at the dockyard, the site where Nelson's flagship HMS Victory was launched in 1765.

Ironically, the newly refurbished Cavalier is set to become one of the summer's biggest tourist attractions at Chatham.

HMS Cavalier is being preserved as a national memorial to the 153 Royal Navy destroyers and their 30,000 crew lost during the Second World War.

Brian Sanders, Cavalier's ship keeper, said: ''After Cavalier arrived in 1999 we were shocked by how badly she had deteriorated.

''It has taken our crew 18 months to reopen the ship to the public below decks and looking after a vessel of this scale is a massive undertaking and will be an ongoing task.''

Updated: 15.50 Wednesday, July 25