It was an unwanted rust bucket, spurned and vandalised by the landlubbers of the North-East. Now the John H Amos, the only surviving steam paddle tug in Britain, is said to have national significance and may merit a substantial Lottery grant.

BRITAIN'S least loved ship is set to rule the waves once again. It is a sea story to splice the mainbrace, and to soften the most barnacled heart.

The John H Amos, which feels like one of the family, was a steam powered paddle tug which from 1933-67 toiled for the Tees Conservancy Commission and in 1969 was given by the Tees and Hartlepool Port Authority to "the people of Cleveland".

The people of Cleveland, it should be said, seemed decidedly ungrateful for the gift.

Aimless Amos they called her, and worse. "An embarrassing legacy," stormed local councillor John Scott in 1975; "a heap of junk," agreed Coun Harry Davies.

Thirty years later, Coun Stephen Smailes still remembers the floating ferrous wheel moored, rusting and ridiculed, at the Corporation Quay in Stockton. "If someone had taken it to a scrapyard they'd have come away with a goldfish in a bowl," he says.

Others simply vandalised, or pirated, her. When a bit of the boiler went missing, it was discovered helping maintain the heating at the municipal swimming baths.

The John H was also the ship that launched a thousand headlines. "Rusting relic Amos must be scrapped, says group", read one; "Amos saved from the chop", said another.

Northern Echo sub-editors, and one wet-eared young columnist, may alone have had a soft spot for the dear old thing.

In 1976, just months after Stockton's leisure and amenities committee had ordered the ship to be broken up, she was saved by maritime enthusiast Martin Stevens from Kent, who paid £3,500 to tow her to the south.

"A sitting duck" said councillors, thinking of the stormy North Sea, but the John H Amos had been called very much worse than that.

Stockton, having felt itself being sold down the river, turned out a brass band to bid her farewell. Whatever else they played, it sure as sea boots wasn't Will Ye No' Come Back Again.

Battered and battened but having survived the North Sea - "it bloody nearly didn't," recalls Martin Stevens - she spent 28 years at various Kentish berths, a sinking just one of the ups and downs.

"I'd prepared a really good berth for her but the harbour people decided they wanted it for their submarine instead. It sat on a lump of concrete and sank. It's just been crisis after crisis," he recalls.

Before leaving the Tees the ship's name had been changed to the Hero, but when Kent seemed a land unfit for Hero's, it was changed back again. On any argument, the old steamer seemed up the creek, with or without a paddle.

"They don't love her here either," admits Martin, who two years ago helped form the Medway Maritime Trust. "She looked a lot better in Stockton than she did here. She's quite a sorry sight but it's nothing a few million quid won't put right."

Thanks to his refusal to go under, however, the 202 ton boat - the only surviving steam paddle tug in Britain, one of two in the world - has been accepted onto the National Historic Ships Committee's "core register" alongside the Cutty Sark and the Victory. It is said to have "pre-eminent national significance".

Now the wood-burning stove salesman from Faversham is negotiating a huge Lottery grant - "they are looking kindly at us," he says - so that restoration can finally go ahead. He estimates it will cost at least £3m.

An affair of the head or the heart? "If it's the head," he says, "then I'm absolutely cuckoo. The qualifications for this are to be completely barmy and completely stubborn. I'm going to see it through now, I'm completely determined of that."

For Martin Stevens, the John H Amos is the original tug of love.

Named after the Conservancy Commission's 80-year-old general manager, she was completed in 1931 after the builders went bankrupt, a coal-fired paddle tug said to have unique horizontal engines but in truth an anachronism at birth.

She was 110ft, had a crew of six, was registered for 130 passengers and guzzled three tons of coal in an eight hour day.

A sea going busman's holiday, Conservancy Commission workers were also allowed to use her for their annual treat.

"She towed barges and carried crew to dredgers, a damn good workhorse who did it very well. The odd bit may be missing, but basically it's all there," says Martin, who occasionally reverts to calling her "it" and, blood being thicker than bilge water, is upbraided for it by a member of the extended Amos family.

It was he who bought the boat in 1976, who arranged the tow to Kent, who thought they might never get there and who, after almost three decades, has finally won the sea battle.

Already the Heritage Lottery Fund has given a £50,000 grant to help plan the main application, on which a trust member has been working full time for a year. Soon, says Martin, it will once more be full steam ahead.

Far from believing that they missed the boat, Coun Smailes professes astonishment that after all this time the John H Amos has resurfaced. "It was scrap when it was at Stockton, not worth 30p, never mind £3m. You wouldn't have dared hit the side with a hammer, it would have sunk."

Now, though her condition remains "very precarious", Martin Stevens is confident that the SOS has at last been heard. "Quite frankly," he says, "we're working miracles here."

* Martin would love to hear from any former crew members or others with memories of the Amos. He's on (01795) 539344.

Kilimanjaro calling

WHEN his friend and gaffer was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Dave Stephenson decided he wanted to raise money to help fight the illness.

Some might have planned a sponsored walk, or a fund raising coffee morning with the neighbours. On February 27, Dave and companion Steve Knox set off on a six day ascent of Mount Kilimanjaro. "We decided over a couple of pints that it would be a good idea," says Dave, 37. "It's amazing what you agree over a pint."

His wife calls it his mid-life crisis.

Africa's highest mountain, and the highest free standing mountain in the world, Kilimanjaro stands 19,340 feet above sea level, is just 205 miles south of the equator but still gets pretty chilly up top.

The ascent, it should be said, is not as difficult as it might sound, the biggest danger altitude sickness. "If that happens all you can do is turn around and come back again,. It would be a terrible disappointment," says Dave.

Confident of success, summit or nowt, he plans to fly the much travelled flag of his local, the Caledonian in Darlington.

A director of Baydale Architectural Systems in Newton Aycliffe, he has been a keen Lakeland walker for several years, though this is going up in the world. "I see it as a natural progression, like five Scafell Pikes in a week, physically demanding but no great technique involved," he insists over a pint of something called snakebite.

Nor, he expects, will there be risk of any other venom. The lower reaches are through rainforest ("plenty of creepy crawlies") followed by grassland and finally glaciers. They are paying for a guide and porters.

Company chairman Andy Smith, diagnosed with MS two years ago, professes himself much cheered by the gesture. "I'm lucky to have such good friends and good family, but there are a lot of people worse off than me."

* Sponsorship details from Dave Stephenson on (01325) 307030.