Hamburg to Hartlepool

CHRISTMAS highlights in this family have for many years included lunch – “pantomime lunch” they call it, and act the thighslapping part – at The Lodge, formerly the motel on the A1 at Leeming Bar.

In again extending the invitation, Mr Carl Les also draws attention back to last week’s shipshape column, rather neatly headed Naval Gazing.

If the Royal Navy is so down on its numbers, says Carl, then probably Ropner’s Navy had more – and thereby hangs a remarkable story.

EMIL Hugo Oscar Robert Ropner – Robert to his friends – was born in Prussia in 1838 and despite never having seen the sea grew up with a fascination for it from the salt-caked pages of his reading.

Whether as a stowaway or as a 19- year-old working his passage – accounts vary – he finally headed to Hamburg to join a ship bound for West Hartlepool, a town about which he knew next to nothing.

The crossing was fearful, the landing unhappy. Unable to speak English and forced to stay in the Seamen’s Mission, young Ropner vowed never again to go to sea – not even to get himself back home.

He worked for a coal exporting company, married, named his first ship the Amy – after his daughter – and (as they say) did very well for himself. In 1874 he founded the Ropner Shipbuilding Company in Hartlepool, primarily to construct and operate what became known as tramps.

(The etymological breeches-buoy between a maritime tramp and a gentleman of the road may be that neither had a set route, but that’s a journey for another day.) Ropner’s, at any rate, also established a shipyard in Stockton and became one of the biggest and most successful trading companies in the country.

Knighted in 1902 and made a baronet two years later, Robert also gave the land for what became known as Ropner Park to the people of Stockton “so long as the council lay it out tastefully and keep it up for ever”.

Though Ropner Park hasn’t always been as green and pleasant as the benefactor would have wished, the grass has looked an awful lot more tasteful of late.

THE dynasty multiplied, buying three estates – Thorp Perrow, Camp Hill and Patrick Brompton – near Bedale in North Yorkshire, the area where many of the family still live.

Robert Ropner Jnr became High Sheriff of Durham in 1896 and Conservative MP for Stockton from 1900- 10. His father, the founder of the fleet, died in 1924, aged 85.

“I understand that there was an expression around Hartlepool that Ropner’s Navy was second only to the Royal Navy,” says Carl Les, himself a Conservative county councillor.

The story of Ropner’s Navy was published earlier this year by Billy McGee, for 12 years a Ropner’s seaman who lives in Hartburn, Stockton, and who has raised money for memorials to Ropner crews in Stockton, Singapore and Germany.

The book – published by Cormorant of Hartlepool, £7.95 – chiefly chronicles the company’s losses in two world wars, a total 736 men and 70 vessels, and was inspired by his son’s Ropnerthemed school play.

“It was one of the biggest shipping fleets in the world and many people know nothing about it,” said Billy. “I was well aware of the enormous losses incurred; it’s a piece of our maritime heritage and I thought it was important to mark that.”

Ropner’s owned 284 ships between 1874-1997, many named after small Northallerton area villages like Firby, Warlaby, Romanby and Lackenby.

The company was taken over in 1997. Ropner’s Navy ruled the waves no longer.

THE only member of the Ropner family with whom Gadfly ever had dealings was Jeremy, a member of the British bobsleigh team from 1960-62 and – just to show that life isn’t always downhill all the way – Conservative candidate for Bishop Auckland in the 1964 and 1966 general elections.

Later chairman of the family firm, he appeared a thoroughly decent cove – though a parliamentary hopeful was hardly going to tell the wet-eared young reporter to jump off the end of the pier.

On both occasions he opposed sitting Labour MP Jim Boyden and despite some assiduous campaigning was twice deluged. It would take more than Ropner’s Navy to outgun the Labour party in Bishop Auckland.

BACK on dry land, there’ve been a few problems at Darlington railway station – not, for heaven’s sake, the train station – where “revenue protection” staff are now in place to restrict access to ticket holding passengers only.

Difficulties, the Echo reported last Tuesday, were being encountered by the less able-bodied whose family could no longer lend a hand.

We’d contacted National Express.

“With regard to helping relatives with their luggage,” said a spokesman, “we will have staff on the barriers at all times to let people through on a case by case basis.”

It’s spotted by Tim Stahl, also in Darlington – and that one, says Tim, is on its way to the News Quiz on Radio 4, an’ all.

THANKS also to Barry Chapman who reports that he looked into the Somerfield store at Norton-on-Tees – on his way back from a Christmas party – to find hot cross buns on sale with a bestby date of December 14 and with 75 per cent off.

“It appears that people weren’t yet ready for Easter,” concludes Barry.

“I’ll be on the look out for cheap eggs.”

NO expense spared, the column’s own Christmas shopping inevitably embraces the Lions Club bookshop in Houndgate Mews, Darlington – arcade entrance opposite Binns and well worth seeking out.

Almost nothing is more than £1, almost everything in good condition, the range enormous – though we and Tom Peacock, the Lion on duty last Friday morning, drew the line at Keep Fit and Enjoy Sex.

The admirable Tom is 70-odd now, getting a bit long in the tooth like most Lions and members of similar charitable organisations.

It’s doubtless coincidental that at their carol service at All Saints, Blackwell, tomorrow evening they will be singing As With Gladness Men of Old.

ALL Saints will in turn feature in Saturday’s At Your Service column, following the opening last Sunday – a wonderful occasion – of the first new parish church in the diocese of Durham for more than 50 years.

In the parish magazine, Canon John Dobson also tells the Christmas story of the little lad chosen to play Joseph in the Sunday School nativity play who following some indiscretion is demoted to be the first innkeeper.

After the starring (as it were) role he is left with just one line: “I’m sorry, there is no room here.”

The church is packed when the big day comes, parents and grandparents as excited as the bairns.

Mary and her newly promoted husband arrive at the first inn where, instead of being politely told that there is no room they hear a vengeful innkeeper depart somewhat from his script.

“You can come in,” he says, pointing to Mary, “but he can go to….”

His final word is muffled, writes Canon Dobson, as he is enticed from the stage.

NO such equivocation about our good wishes to all readers, and especially those who once again have helped keep the ship afloat during 2008. A very happy Christmas to one and all.

If we survive the pantomime lunch and sundry other over-indulgences, the column will return on January 7.