To this day, there are still people who think the monkey story is true. That during the Napoleonic wars in the early 19th century, a monkey really did wash up on the Hartlepool shore and was immediately assumed by the credulous townspeople to be a French spy. That the monkey was arrested, questioned, put on trial and – unable to account for its actions – hanged.
It’s not true, obviously. I mean, give it a moment’s thought. Hartlepool is a port town. It’s been a trading centre since Roman times. They’re going to know what other people look like. Actually, the monkey legend originates in a music hall song written by Ned Corvan in the 1850s. But part of the reason people still want to believe it is because it verifies their vague caricature of what Hartlepool must be like. A dim backwater. A scared, unworldly place. They thought a monkey was a Frenchman! Hah! No wonder they voted for Brexit.
