Katy Sexton MBE
Katy Sexton (MBE), born 21 July 1982, Portsmouth.
One of her most significant achievements was becoming the first British female swimmer to win gold at the 2003 World Championships in the 200m backstroke.
She also competed in the 100m and 200m backstroke at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens for Team GB, and has represented England at the Commonwealth Games in 1998, 2002 and 2006.

Nevil Shute
British-born Australian novelist, an accomplished storyteller, whose best-known work, On the Beach (1957), was adapted for the screen in 1959. The picture became one of the most celebrated anti-Bomb films, and attracted much attention in Moscow because it was the first full-length American feature to have a premiere in the Soviet Union. Shute was educated as an aeronautical engineer and he used his expertise on technical issues and knowledge of aviation in his books. His novels Pied Piper (1942) and A Town Like Alice (1959) have also been made into major films.
In 1922 Shute joined the de Havilland Aircraft Company. He worked as an aeronautical engineer, specializing in Zeppelins. He was a deputy chief on the Rigid Airship R100 project, one of the last of the British airships. He flew twice to America aboard it. The project ended after the 1930 R101 disaster. Next year Shute founded Airspeed Ltd at Portsmouth Airport

Freda Mary Swain
Composer and Pianist, Freda was born in Portsmouth in 1902, she studied the piano with Dora Matthay and then at the Royal College of Music with Arthur Alexander, whom she married in 1921.
She formed the British Music Movement in 1926 to promote the works of young composers and artists.
During her career she wrote over 100 songs, a one-act opera Second Chance, a second unfinished opera The Shadowy Waters, a Suite for Six Trumpets, orchestral pieces, two string quartets and many other works. Freda died on the 29th January 1985 at the age of 82.