A team of more than 40 rescuers, spent hours in the thick mud, some up to their waists, as they tried to keep Billy the Northern Bottlenose whale alive.

With her dark hair tied tightly into two plaits retained firefighter Linda Salero and the rest of the crews from fire stations across Hampshire, and the team of volunteer medics from the British Divers Marine Life Rescue, threw every ounce of strength they could muster into rescuing the stricken animal.

Linda said: "I was right next to it and touched it, he was so beautiful. The skin was really soft and a sort of blueish-black colour. It didn't make a sound.

"I've never in my life seen anything that could possibly compare with it.

"We tried our best and did everything we could. It's sad, but when they told us it was going to die we just have to tell ourselves that it is our job, we're a rescue service, and we wouldn't have changed anything we did.

"I know my grandchildren will be upset because they have been watching it all day."

The heavens opened as the mud-splatted rescuers desperately tried to keep the gigantic mammal calm while they waited for high tide in the hope the huge animal could still be floated to safety.

The 46-year-old grandmother, from Leigh Park, was at her day job on the factory floor when she received the alert at 6.15am yesterday.

Within minutes she was at the scene heaving hose reels and buckets down to the distressed creature, stuck on mud flats, 100 yards out into Langstone Harbour.

"It was hot, difficult, physical work,' said Miss Salero. "I don't know how many times I ran back and forth to the trucks, picking up hoses, buckets, spades, hose reels.

"The wind was really strong as you got out on to the slippery path and I fell over a few times and as the tide came in it got a bit hairy but I was never fearful for a moment."

Standing in the mud beside the awesome 30ft, seven ton whale – which was 3,000 miles off course – Miss Salero and the rest of the team sprayed it constantly with sea water.

From the shoreline hordes of onlookers gathered to watch the drama, willing the whale to a miraculous escape, but it was not to be.

Billy's plight meant that Hayling Island, and the team struggling to rescue him, had the eyes of the nation on them – helicopters buzzed overhead relaying lives pictures to news programmes while journalists rushed to the scene.

The list of organisations involved in the huge operation grew bigger by the minute as the situation changed with every ebb of the tide.

The BDMLR, Hampshire Fire and Rescue, Solent Coastguard, RSPCA, RNLI and the Zoological Society of London, made a first-class effort to save Billy.

Just after noon the announcement came that blood test results showed Billy had severe kidney failure, and could not survive.

Devastated children who had been watching all morning from the sea wall fought back tears.

The mood lifted and the crowd cheered when Billy swam off, but the ending was inevitable despite the heroics of those working to help him.

Within hours he had beached himself again, and this time there was no final twist in the sad tale which had gripped millions.