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Patricia Page, owner of a pest and rodent control business in the north west, said it appeared a large colony had set up home on the quay, adding it is a real "cause for concern".

He would order “bottles of white wine at the former bar L’Alexandre” before “getting drunk at Rosebud” and “hanging out on the quays with the second-hand booksellers or the Shakespeare and Company bookstore.”

The other rescued people were taken to Boulogne-sur-Mer quay and taken care of by the land rescue services.

The main indicator of its deadly potential is a fire truck parked outside on the quay.

With two blasts of its horn, MV Hebridean Isles bade farewell as it left the quay at Stornoway for a final time on Sunday, bound for Glasgow before it goes to the breakers.