THE whale was a beauty, a shiny grey leviathan basking in the Arctic seas. The seven Whitby whalers had been stalking it for hours, protected from the bitter cold by grotesque uniforms of sealskin and cow-hair wigs.

When the harpoon went in, the gentle creature came alive, diving to the icy depths, the two-and-a-half inch hemp rope smoking as it carved a notch in the wooden whaleboat, and in danger of setting it ablaze. Within ten minutes the line had run out, the whalers' quarry submerged 120 fathoms below. For four hours the "Greenland" men fought and finally succeeded in overcoming their huge prey, a quick hunt for hardened seamen used to work 48 hours without a break. Their precious cargo was landed, there would be wages this voyage.

But the catches were not always this easy. Another hunting party in the Greenland whaling fleet ran out 15 lines, dragging two 28ft boats and 15 men into water so cold it could freeze a body solid within minutes. The struggle continued over the ice as the whale tried to escape its industrial fate by diving beneath it. The hours-long battle would only have one end and when the dead whale was finally brought alongside the whaleboat's parent ship, the men discovered it had also been dragging another six lines and a boat belonging to another vessel.

As large and as strong as the Arctic whales were, they could never be a match for man, particularly the North-East whalers, considered the toughest seamen in the world.

A forgotten industry in many ways, despite the constant reminders at places such as Whitby, where countless visitors walk daily under a whale bone archway, it remains one of the region's most successful.

Ask anyone about the heritage of the North-East and North Yorkshire and they will point to coal, steel and shipbuilding as the foundations of the region's prosperity. But for 100 years, whaling put a host of coastal towns and villages on the world map, making heroes out of Northern seamen, creating folklore out of work.

Whale meat put bread in the mouths of countless coastal village folk, it greased the machinery of industry, it lit the lamps of streets and houses all over the country.

But the history of the whale trade has escaped the attention of text books over the years and is poorly chronicled - until now. North-East academic Tony Barrow, aims to put that right with his new book, The Whaling Trade of North-East England 1750-1850, which traces the highs and lows of a trade which shaped the region, from the 18th Century to the post Second World War austerity days.

Today, the practice is seen as abhorrent, continued by only a few nations who are condemned by the rest of the world. But in the 1700s, whole communities depended on whaling, from Berwick in the north to Whitby in the south.

Barrow, 58, an expert in maritime history and lecturer at Newcastle College, has a passion for sailing. "The sea is in my blood," he says. "It was inevitable that I would end up here. I was just drawn into it." The book marks the continuation of research he started in 1989 for his PhD and work he does as a member of the International Society for Nautical Research, the British Commission for Maritime History and the National Trust.

He discovered Greenland men were a different breed, hardy, plain-speaking, physically and mentally hard, truculent and little versed in the niceties of life. They were admired and they were feared in equal measure.

"Hunting whales from open boats in sub-zero temperatures with primitive hand-held harpoons demanded special skills and a particular kind of courage," he writes.

When they sailed aboard other types of vessels, they were appreciated for their nautical skills, their self-reliance and innovative minds. But they were resented for their arrogance, their lack of discipline and prickly nature. In them rested the seeds of trade unionism, they were reviled by the Navy's press gangs as they were too tough to handle and organised official resistance to impressment.

But to understand them properly, it's necessary to look at their lives. The whalers were an exclusive bunch, provided by the same families for generations. Many spent their entire working lives aboard Greenland ships. John Patterson, of North Shields, for instance, first went to sea aged nine and completed his 50th whale voyage 50 years later. About 50 men would share the cramped quarters of a whaling ship and man one of seven whaling rowing boats.

The ships would leave Northern ports in February or March to give them some chance of reaching the whaling grounds around Greenland by May. They would then have only four to five months to catch the migrating whales before their boats were in danger of being trapped in the ice.

The weather they faced was some of the worst the Earth could throw at them and, even in spring, the gales took their toll. Often ships lost their rudders and masts and the Greenland men only survived on their wits, rigging up temporary masts to get them to safety. As they approached the ice edge, temperature drops of 25 degrees F in one day were common.

Their heavy winter gear offered scant protection against the elements, even less if they ended up in the water. Frostbite and exposure were occupational hazards to be endured. On one voyage, a ship's surgeon had to amputate 35 fingers and toes from the crew after being caught in a squall. In fact, missing digits became the hallmark of the whaler, a badge of honour worn with pride in the pubs and taverns of home ports.

During the hunt, countless men were lost to the sea as the whale dragged boats under or smashed them to pieces. And even when the expedition was successful, the flensing (or stripping) of the whale was cold, greasy, back-breaking work.

The hardships were worth enduring when the catches were good and whalers were the best paid seamen in the navy. But when the ships came back empty, or were shipwrecked en route home, the work was a thankless affair. By the 1830s, bad weather, a spate of fatal voyages and a drop in the number of whales began to whittle away at an industry already struggling to get a good price for its oil. A growth in the number of colliers robbed whalers of their crews as shipping coal to London, seldom out of sight of land, seemed a safer option than the Arctic. And, by 1870, the whaling trade was virtually dead in the water, the stories of the Greenland men confined to folklore and the poorly-chronicled annals of history.

l Many people living in the region today may have stories of relatives involved in the whaling trade. Let us have them and you could win a prize of one of six copies of The Whaling Trade of North-East England. Send them by letter to Whaling Memories, The Northern Echo, PO Box 14, Priestgate, Darlington, Co Durham, DL1 1NF, or email ilamming