Sherlock Holmes first appeared in A Study In Scarlet, which was published in Beeton's Christmas Annual for 1887, with the central character partly modelled on Joseph Bell, who had been Doyle's professor at university.

"It is most certainly to you that I owe Sherlock Holmes," he later wrote to Bell, "...round the centre of deduction and inference and observation which I have heard you inculcate I have tried to build up a man."

And he had certainly managed to do just that, for the public loved the arrogant, aloof, cocaine-using detective and other stories soon followed, along with a steady bonus income.

to change, so the people who made their way to Bush Villas tended to be either poorer types, or, if Doyle was lucky, new arrivals in the town, yet to find themselves a reliable medic.

Thus it was that the doctor found himself with a lot of time on his hands between patients and so, in an attempt to earn himself a bit of extra pocket money, he turned his hand to writing again - and this time he would strike it lucky and, in due course, very rich, as his master detective emerged to take his first public bow.

real or fictional, has been played by so many different actors, over so many years, apart from his faithful sidekick, Watson, of course!

When the story was published, the public outcry was unbelievable, but for a long while Doyle resisted the pressure to bring back his creation.

However, public and financial pressures forced him to relent eventually and between 1903 and 1905, in a collection entitled The Return of Sherlock Holmes, the detective returned from the dead in a story called The Adventure of the Empty House, with the explanation that although Moriarty had died in Switzerland, he, Holmes, had used the opportunity to "disappear", as many powerful enemies were seeking his death.

The public were overjoyed, especially as the story saw Holmes and Watson bait a trap for Colonel Sebastian Moran, Moriarty's former evil henchman, eventually bringing him to justice for his life of brutal crime.

The continued success of Holmes bore out a warning Doyle's mother had given him, when he first confided in her his wish to "slay" Holmes, because the detective took his mind off "better things".

"You may do what you deem fit," she told her son, "but the crowds will not take this lightheartedly."

By this time, of course, Arthur Conan Doyle had moved from Portsmouth, with his first wife and two children, eventually settling in the London area; he was knighted in 1902 and in 1907 he then moved to Crowborough, in East Sussex, where he spent the last 23 years of his life.

He died from a heart attack at the age of 71 at his house, "Windlesham", on 7 July 1930.

For a long time, afficionados considered Basil Rathbone as the definitive Holmes and Watson, even though such other notables as John Barrymore, Christopher Lee, Tom Baker, Peter Cushing, Ian Richardson (and even Michael Caine, in a comedy spoof) have played the great detective and the likes of Douglas Wimer and Patrick Macnee have portrayed Watson.

However, most people today - and not just because they are not old enough to remember the Basil Rathbone-Nigel Bruce cinema partership, as their films are repeated often enough on television - would probably agree that Jeremy Brett brought a totally new dimension to the Homes character in the eighties TV series.

First with David Burke, who made an admirable Watson and then with Edwarde Hardwicke, who took over the role in later series, when Burke decided he wanted to concentrate on other projects, Brett was superb and makes for compulsive viewing, whenever any of these episodes is resurrected on the small screen.

Conan Doyle, incredibly, grew tired of his creation, considering that Holmes had taken over his life and, wanting to concentrate on writing historical novels, he decided to kill off the detective in The Final Problem, written in December 1893.

In this intended finale, Holmes and his arch-enemy, Professor James Moriarty, plunged to their feaths over the Reichenbach Falls, in the Swiss Alps.

There is little in Portsmouth these days to commemorate Conan Doyle's time here, which is a great shame.

His grave is in the churchyard at Minstead (pictured, right), in the New Forest and the Sherlock Holmes Museum is at 221b Baker Street, in London - curiously, in Conan Doyle's day, the house was simply No 221, but "221b" was created for the benefit of the museum and the thousands of fans who visit it regularly.

Nevertheless, Portsmouth can claim to have been the "birthplace" of Sherlock Holmes, no matter where he and his creator moved on to in later life and the city can claim Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle as a true son, albeit adoptive ...