18 January 2009

Boddam – the real home of the monkey hangers?

H'angus

The people of Hartlepool appear to be proud of the sobriquet monkey hanger (although I won’t put it to the test by calling the first person from the Pools I meet that name....) to the point that the local football club mascot is called H’angus. This is the former job of the current mayor...

The name stems from the Napoleonic era when a French ship was wrecked off Hartlepool in the Napoleonic Wars. A monkey found in the water was hanged by fishermen fearing it was a spy.

However it would seem that Hartleppool should not have claim to the sobriquet: according to the BBC an Aberdeen University study claims the tale originated in Scotland. Fiona-Jane Brown, a folklorist at Aberdeen University's Elphinstone Institute, suggests the Hartlepool legend stems from a similar incident off the village of Boddam, near Peterhead, in 1772.

A song of the time recalls how a monkey survived a shipwreck off Boddam. The villagers could only claim salvage rights if there were no survivors from the wreck, so they allegedly hanged the monkey. Ms Brown claims the song was adapted over many years as it travelled down the east coast, eventually spawning a Hartlepool version and embedding the monkey myth in Teesside culture.

"On Teesside, the legend has been generally adopted as a positive marker of social identity which survived on the football field. She said "But in Scotland, the Boddamers have refused to accept what they see as a slur against their community, a bad memory of bitter rivalries of the past."

I suppose it’s lucky for the people of Hartlepool that the Boddamers are in no rush to wrest the title of monkey hanger...

7 comments:

James Higham said...

Good ole public executions as a basis for a team ... hmmm.

Kay Dennison said...

Oh hell! They complain about the name of the Cleveland Indians, too, as politally incorrect.

? said...

Monkey hangers. Interesting indeed

jams o donnell said...

Ha now there's a team building exerciee for managers... one that would go down well if the boss or a hated underling was the stringee!

Definitely un-PC Kay!

An interesting tale indeed!

RobW said...

Heard this before -- a rather funny story.

jams o donnell said...

It is a funny story Rob

Rob Stephenson said...

Hey there im from Hartlepool myself! some intresting info i never knew there.

I think people differ in our town some dont like being called monkeyhangers and the most dont really mind it gives us an individual identity i guess (well not now lol) and hey its just a joke that people throw about these days though it has got hartlepool known across the globe lol so maybe its a good thing after all.

personaly i dont mind the nickname like i say it gives our town an identity even if it is a slightly weird one.

im actualy in progress of making my own blog about hartlepool.

Regards Rob. S
Proud to be born and bread in Hartlepool