TradeWinds is ashamed to admit it has missed the shipping scoop of the year.

The BBC has revealed that the table on which the late Prince Philip was born in 1921 now sits proudly in the boardroom of London shipbroker Howe Robinson Partners.

Howe Robinson managing partner Guy Hindley Photo: tuckerimages

The polished Queen Anne style piece of furniture was bought by the broker in 1980.

It sits 12 people comfortably for meetings of all kinds.

Media reports have repeated the story that the Duke of Edinburgh, who died last week aged 99, was born on a kitchen table at a villa in Corfu.

Kitchen table myth debunked?

But the Howe Robinson table is definitely meant for a dining room.

The broker's chairman David Anderson told the BBC that staff rarely have lunch on it anymore, however.

"I just find it a really interesting piece of furniture. I never think, golly, what was left behind on it?" he added.

Guy Hindley, managing partner of the dry cargo division, is described as the broker's in-house historian.

He explained there is no clear explanation as to why the Duke was brought into the world on a table.

But Hindley said old biographies suggested his mother's doctor thought a bed was somehow not appropriate, so she was carried downstairs.

An antiques expert was brought in by the BBC to discuss the table, which he pronounced as "mass-produced and nothing special".

But its history will certainly add value should times become hard for the shipbroker and it needs to raise some cash by selling it.