Rev Andrew Jacobson, Assistant Chaplain in Gibraltar who is also the Mediterranean Mission to Seafarer’s Gibraltar Port Chaplain has welcomed a surprise visit from a Ship’s Visitor from the Mission to Seafarers’ in Hartlepool.
Andrew had shown the visitors around the Flying Angel Club and was then presented with some special gifts from Hartlepool including Hartlepool United Football Club programmes and a copy of the Hartlepool Mail. Also (appropriately for Gibraltar, which is famous for the apes on the Rock) he was presented with a Hartlepool FC’s monkey mascot.
According to legend, during the Napoleonic Wars, a Hartlepool fisherman watched a French warship sink off the coast, the only survivor was a monkey, which was dressed in French military uniform. Apparently the fishermen assumed that this was a subtle disguise and after a brief trial, summarily executed the monkey!