Up periscope! Our new shop design the Submariner Tee & Hoodie takes its inspiration from part of Portsmouth's long naval history, with a re-working of the handmade Jolly Roger flags which were flown from Royal Navy submarines as they entered port. This was first seen in September 1914, when the British submarine HMS E9 successfully torpedoed the German cruiser SMS Hela, with commanding officer Max Horton instructing his submariners to manufacture a Jolly Roger, and with each successful patrol fly an additional Jolly Roger until there was no more room. At which point, Horton instead had a large Jolly Roger made, onto which symbols indicating E9's achievements were sewn.

From the various symbols on the flag, you can tell the history of each submarine, and it was the responsibility of the boat's personnel to keep their flag updated. There's twenty different recognized unique symbols that can feature on the flag, denoting the sinking or torpedoing of vessels such as U-Boats, merchant vessels or warships. And these would be sat next to symbols for the type of missile used, or incidents that occurred on the mission.

Only a number of other British submarines followed the practice during the First World War, but the practice did resume in the Second World War and was quickly adopted by others, to the point where commanders of submarine flotillas began to hand out the flags to successful submarines. And this wasn't exclusive to the British submarines, as allied submariners working with Royal Navy fleets adopted the tradition from their British counterparts.

We thought that these incredible one-off pieces of history were a perfect fit for a store graphic, as we're situated in the home of the Royal Navy, and these things look really cool. Our design, created by David Millard, features a stylized skull and crossbones graphic which also features the store's name, year of opening and the Portsmouth crest. It's going to be available to start with on a T-Shirt and Zip-Up Hoodie, both coming in Black. Down periscope.

Shop all Bored of Southsea.