When Jacko the monkey terrorised Barton

Over recent weeks, we’ve been accumulating monkey stories, starting with the extraordinary tale of Herbert the monkey who broke out of his house in Shildon and into the co-op slaughterhouse. He jumped onto a sheep and rode out into Garbutt Street. With the residents chasing after the simian sheepback rider and shouting “stop that monkey”, he disappeared off into the Shildon sunset.

The Half Moon in Barton in 2005 with Jacko the monkey's depot on the right - the building is now reduced to a skeleton frame

From Barton, we’ve had several sightings of Jacko, who lived in the Burn Brothers haulage depot behind the Half Moon pub.

John Clement, who was born in the village but is now in Barnard Castle, says that Jacko began her days in the early 1960s in the Bay Horse pub in Middleton Tyas which was run by his aunt and uncle, Mich and Archie Wigley.

“They also had a parrot at the Bay Horse,” says John. “My uncle went up to it one day and said ‘give us a kiss, Polly’ and it bit him right through the lip.”

The Wigleys were friends with the Burns of Barton and it was agreed that Jacko should move out of the pub and into the haulage depot.

However, Jacko was a skilled escapologist. Once out of the depot, she would terrorise the village – the phrase “watch out, monkey’s out” would cause alarm in Barton.

“She was a bit of a rogue,” says John. “She used to get out and go into people’s houses and pinch things.”

The Half Moon in the mid-1960s, so poor Jacko must have been enduring the snowy conditions in her heated depot on the right of the pub

Tim Deighton, now in Dent, near Sedbergh, is another old Bartonian. He said: “I grew up in the village in the 1970s and spent my childhood playing on the green and on the wagons at the Burns’ garage – we used to crawl through the pipes that were loaded onto them. Mr Broom, the vicar, used to tell us off but Mr Burn, who owned the wagons, did not seem to mind.

“Jacko lived up in the rafters of the wagon garage. She bit me on the leg once, probably in about 1978, and I remember running home crying.”

Another old Bartonian, now in Barnard Castle, says: “Jacko belonged to Paul Burn and lived in a cage in the top garage, which was heated in winter.

“He thought the world of her but I was terrified of her and never went near – those bared yellow fangs! – but Paul handled her and only got the odd bite. He swore by neat Domestos for cleansing the wound!

“She did occasionally escape and go round the village, and the cry of "the monkey’s loose" sent everyone indoors.”

Barton village cross in September 1951. Behind the tree on the left was the entrance to the haulage depot - is that one of the Burn brothers' wagons?

"It is quite true," says Christine Stedman. "The cry used to go out along the Main Street that the monkey was loose and you could hear doors and windows banging the length of the street."

Christine's parents ran the village shop in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and she lived next door where her four-year-old daughter referred to "Jacket the monkey".

"If it did escape from the depot, our back yard was it’s first port of call," she continues. "I remember once going outside for shovel of coke for my Rayburn fire, leaving my two children watching Watch with Mother and coming back in to see three little heads watching Andy Pandy as “Jacket” had paid us a visit!

"I had to run into the shop and get my Dad from behind the counter to come and chase the monkey out.

"Another time, she was sitting on our back step, watching me through the glass door and hissing at me. It was a Sunday morning and the only way I could get rid of her was to open the door quickly and throw a Yorkshire pudding over the wall. She then jumped back over to retrieve it."

There is great debate about what happened to Jacket/Jacko. One person reckons she was run over by a wagon; another that she lived into the 1990s (although all our reports come from the 1960s and 1970s).

The former Queen's Head at Gainford is the white building on the right. Pico the monkey lived here. Picture: Google StreetView

WHILE it always has been unusual to find a monkey in a haulage depot, only a few decades ago, it was not that unusual to find a monkey in a pub.

In the 1960s, we reckon the Holly Hill at the top of Sleegill in Richmond also had a monkey in the bar, while Pico the monkey lived at the Queen’s Head in Gainford with landlady Elsie Naismith. Pico, poor thing, was described as a “bad-tempered perisher” who lived in a cage at the back of the pub.

Regulars fed the unfortunate creature on tab ends and Pico responded by shooting out his arm and trying to rip the buttons off people’s coats as they walked by.

IAN WRIGHT, who was a pioneering photographer with The Northern Echo in the 1960s, recalls going to Barton to take a picture of Jacko in the cab of one of the Burns’ wagons.

Ian didn’t think it too unusual for a monkey to be hanging out in a haulage depot.

“My granny Foster in Middlestone Moor also had a monkey in her miner’s cottage,” he says. “It was named Paddler. As a small child I was terrified of it, always pulling my hair. Apparently my grandad brought it back after the war. It had been his ship's mascot.”

Landlord Jim Wilkinson with one of the "UFO lights" that he used to draw attention to the Bay Horse in late December 1998

THE Bay Horse in Middleton Tyas hit the headlines at Christmas 1998 not because of its monkey but because of its illuminations which were absolutely out of this world.

As a way of spiriting up business, landlord Jim Wilkinson had acquired a “UFO light” that projected patterns 200ft into the dark night sky which could be seen for at least eight miles all around.

Traffic on the A1(M) was said to be distracted by the highly unusual lightshow which gave the impression that aliens were taking a great interest in the village.

Although the Civil Aviation Authority had given Jim the green light to use his lights, Richmondshire District Council decreed that they were advertising and refused planning permission for them, and they were removed.

The pub closed about 10 years later and now two new residences are on its site.

The lights on the Bay Horse at Middleton Tyas in December 1998

THE Half Moon in Barton, behind which Jacko once lived, still trades, and we’d love to learn more about the story of a German spy who, it was said, took up lodgings there during the Second World War.

With Barton being beside the A1, which was the main road for troop movement, and with the airfields of Croft, Scorton and Middleton St George nearby, the Half Moon might have been a good place from which to monitor the war effort.

Apparently, after a year of handling post from Switzerland for the lodger, the postmaster became suspicious and called the police. The lodger was carted off and never seen again, and the word was that he had been passing on all the sensitive information that he had gathered to a safe house in Zurich.

His disappearance came at the same time that a group of spies posing as Irish clergymen were rounded up in south Durham.

Any information about this wartime monkey business would be greatly appreciated.