Town’s mayor dismisses monkey claim
Origin of folk tale debated as Boddam story questioned by Hartlepool
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THE mayor of an English town caught up in a row over a 300-year-old folk tale has dismissed claims that the legend actually originates near Peterhead.
Researchers at Aberdeen University believe stories about the hanging of a monkey in Hartlepool during the Napoleonic Wars may refer to an incident almost 100 years earlier at Boddam.
According to legend, the Hartlepool monkey was the only survivor of a wrecked French warship during the Napoleonic Wars. The crew had dressed it in full military uniform.
Thinking it must be a Frenchman, the fishermen hanged the unlucky simian seafarer. The story was handed down the generations and today fans of English League One side Hartlepool United, whose squad includes ex-Dundee United and Ross County defender Jamie McCunnie, are nicknamed the Monkey Hangers.
The town is so proud of its nickname, that in 2002 Hartlepool United club mascot H’Angus the Monkey caused a sensation by being elected mayor of Hartlepool.
Former call centre manager Stuart Drummond went from entertaining crowds at Victoria Park to taking charge of a council budget of more than £1million. He ran on a manifesto of giving free bananas to Hartlepool’s schoolchildren and has remained in office ever since.
Last night he told the Press and Journal: “I have heard many theories and possible explanations of how the monkey-hanging legend came to be associated with Hartlepool. There is even a theory that it has something to do with aliens landing.
“The truth is that we will never know what actually happened and where. However don’t try and tell any proud Hartlepudlians that the legend is not true or you will be given short shrift.
“It is a story we are delighted to be associated with and you will find many references to the hanged monkey around the town. Indeed, many local sports clubs have adopted a monkey in a noose as their club emblem.”
The Aberdeen study, which is looking at the cultural identity of British fishing communities, found whole lines of The Hartlepool Monkey song, written in 1854, were lifted from a song written 80 years earlier on the hanging of the Boddam monkey.
The Boddamers Hung the Monkey-O describes how a monkey survived a shipwreck off the Aberdeenshire village. Villagers could claim salvage rights only if there were no survivors from the wreck, so they allegedly hanged the monkey.
Mr Drummond added: “Boddam may well try and claim the legend as their own and I believe there is a village in Devon which also claims an association, but I firmly believe Hartlepool is the original place of the hanging of the monkey and Hartlepudlians take a lot of pride in identifying ourselves as monkey hangers.”
