King of Redonda pops in for a pint in The Duke of Wellington in Southampton

Forget crowd thronging pavements and flag-waving ceremonial drives to swanky embassies in the heart of London.

This was the ultimate low key arrival of a king to a consulate sandwiched between a hairdresser’s and a tool shop and opposite a glaziers.

King Michael the Grey, 60, was making his first trip as King of Redonda – an uninhabited Caribbean island lying some 30 miles from Antigua and the remnant of an extinct volcano – to his far flung consulate that doubles up as a pub.

The ruler turned up unnoticed in his 4x4 car to slip into the Wellington Arms in Southampton to meet his official representative, Sir Bob, better known as landlord Robert Beech.

Being on foreign soil, the consulate was established in 2007 as a crafty ruse to get round the anti-smoking law but our Government would have none of it.

It had been hoped his popular predecessor, the illustrious Robert the Bald, alias Canadian Bob Williamson, might honour the watering hole with a regal visit but he sadly died last year.

A rummage through the trunk aboard his old Russian-built wooden sloop, which appropriately featured in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, uncovered an unusual will – his request for old friend and former merchant navy captain and sailing journalist Mike Howorth to succeed him.

“The title is not hereditary,”

the new king explained, propping up the bar at the Park Road pub where a consulate plaque proudly adorns the wall outside.

“It can only be passed from writer to writer. I am surprised and honoured in that order.”

Wearing a dark suit with a green, brown and blue sash, symbolising the island’s grass, rock and sky, he waited outside the pub as a chalked jazz band promotion was wiped away.

Then he posed regally, donning a make-do and less than solid looking replica crown (the original was squashed in luggage) and with a ceremonial sword, given to his wife’s grandfather, Rumney Samson, as best cadet of his year at Dartmouth College.

“I met Robert in 1973 when I lived on my boat, the Red Hackle, in the Caribbean and we became good friends,” he explained. “When I returned to the UK, he became my Antigua correspondent. This is my first time in the consulate but I certainly hope it won’t be my last.”

Meanwhile, Sir Bob was delighted with his stately visitor.

“It’s not every pub that can claim to have had a king in the premises.”

Consulate smoker bid snuffed out

IT was in the summer of 2007 as Britain prepared itself for the introduction of the smoking ban that Bob Beech’s Freemantle pub declared itself an embassy of Redonda.

It followed the granting of an knighthood to Mr Beech by the late ruler of the tiny island, King Robert the Bald, pictured, from Antigua.

Sir Bob believed its embassy status would allow smokers to continue smoking, as the pub would be classed as ‘foreign soil’.

But the audacious plan to avoid the national smoking ban was foiled when the Foreign Office declared that Redonda was a territory of Antigua and Barbuda and therefore was not entitled to an embassy or high commission in the UK.