While the rest of us were ringing in the new year with parties and fireworks, poor old Prince William was hunting for lost dog walkers in his lumbering Sea King helicopter.

He spent New Year's Eve away from Kate taking part in a search for a man blown into the sea in a force eight gale.

According to the Daily Mirror, William was on duty as part of a search and rescue helicopter crew when the alarm was raised that a man had been swept into freezing waves in Blackpool.

William was scrambled from RAF Valley on Anglesey, north Wales, just a few hours in to the New Year, searching for the missing man, who had been walking his dog in Blackpool with a friend when both men ended up in the water shortly after midnight.