On the passing of Tommy Taylor

by Mike Amos

Tommy Taylor, who died this week aged 82, was a working lad from Shildon – former national boxing champion, wagon works man, dedicated and long serving councillor, folk music enthusiast, terrible dominoes player and a man who knew a nice bit of stuff when he saw one.

We shall return to that last matter in due coruse.

Tommy was also one of the most honest and most honourable men, the most genuine and most generous, that ever it has been my great good fortune to call friend.

David Cobbold, whose father was Governor of the Bank of England and who himself would become Baron Cobbold of Knebworth, had an altogether different pedigree. In the autumn of 1974, and with barely a month’s notice, he was chosen as Liberal candidate for Bishop Auckland in the general election.

The future Lord Cobbold was also an enthusiastic jouster, and Bishop Auckland a windmill.

“I remember him asking me what chance he had and telling him next to none” said Tommy. “It didn’t deter him a bit.”

Keen to impress, Cobbold even joined the lads in Elm Road workmen’s club for a game of cards. “They talked about it for years afterwards” Tommy recalled, “playing pontoon with the son of the governor of the Bank of England.”

The two became friends, Tommy several times a weekend guest at the stately Knebworth House, near Stevenage, and on one occasion seated at dinner next to the daughter of the Marquis of Salisbury and her husband, an Army captain.

Asked his own military experience, Tom said he’d been a corporal in the Terriers.

“I suppose you should call me Sir” said the toff, a remark overheard by the host who came close to busting him. “No one pulls rank on guests in my house” he said. “Everyone is equal.”

On one occasion, however – when the Rolling Stones played Knebworth – Tommy declined a weekend invitation. “I wouldn’t go to see the Rolling Stones in Elm Road club” he said. “I’m buggered if I’m going to see them in Hertfordshire.”

Boxing champs: Tommy Taylor, John Heighington and Terry Schofield

*Shildon British Railways Boxing Club, as then it was, produced scores of champions. Among them was John Heighington,who became chief coach for half a century and who once fought on the same Wembley bill as Tommy – who became an assiduous club chairman.

John won, Tommy was named the night’s best loser. “I remember learning about it in Wembley hospital” he liked to recall.

He also ended up in hospital after an accident on night shift at Shildon Works, an incident affectionately recalled in my autobiography, Unconsidered Trifles.

Tommy had been using a matchstick to howk out the wax from his ear (as you do) when a passing workmate accidentally knocked his elbow. The matchstick broke, half of it disappearing into the inner sanctuary of his skull.

It enlivened the night shift in A&E at Darlington Memorial. “I hope” said the doctor – he really did – “that you enjoyed the match.”

*Tommy became a social worker after the wagon works closed, had been a councillor pretty much continuously since 1976, duties carried out meticulously and conscientiously despite hand tremors for which he willingly became a national guinea pig.

The tremors also affected his ability to sup ale, though not by too much.

In 2014 he was among a group of long-serving county councillors elected as alderman, an occasion to which he kindly invited me. Durham County Hall had lots of posters for Robin Hood, he who robbed the rich to fund the poor.

Allegorical? Who knows.

Formalities over, members resumed playing with their phones and were rebuked by Pauline Charlton, the chairman. She might have been reminded that the Northern League chairman at that time had arbitrarily introduced a fine of a round of drinks for any whose phones rang during meetings.

Memory suggests that the last victim was long serving Chester-le-Street FC chairman Joe Burlison and that he paid up cheerfully (if a little ruefully.)

Back at County Hall they’d returned to party political squabbling. “If they don’t give over me dinner will get card” said Tommy, who never lost the Durham dialect.

“If they don’t give over” echoed a newly elected Labour alderman in a rare display of political unity, “I’m going to miss me tea.”

*The following year, June 2015, I announced the intention to stand down after 20 years as Northern League chairman – the final season to be marked by those 42 match day walks which made up the Last Legs Challenge.

Presumably after a quiet news weekend, it made the Monday morning papers. Tommy rang at 6 30am, pledging £500. A year later, it remained the biggest individual donation.

*Tommy never sought headlines but in 2008 they found him. Always a Liberal Democrat, he’d been elected leader of Crook-based Wear Valley District Council.

Shortly into his tenure – “about three weeks and two of them on holiday” – he’d spotted a magazine photograph (above) of three council employees, observing – at the policy and strategic development committee, no less – that they were “nice bits of stuff.”

Woke when still sleepwalking, the Labour group demanded his resignation. The nationals loved it, the young ladies said that they took it as a compliment.

“We’re Geordies up here and that’s the way it should stay” said Tommy. “There’s no need for airs and graces, if you find a woman attractive and a cracking bit of stuff, then why not let them know. It was meant to be a compliment.”

The headline in the Newcastle-based Evening Chronicle summed it up best: “Stuff and nonesense” it said.

That Tommy stood down as leader shortly afterwards was entirely due to the health problems which were never far away. He fought them, as he fought in the boxing ring, with courage and resilience. He really was one of the best.

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*That passing reference to Unconsidered trifles is coincidental. In the window of the Darlington Lions Club book shop -, a charitable venture which over the years has raised huge amounts for charity – Simon Lee spots a copy of that self-same 400-page memoire, remaindered like everything else for £1. One or two new copies remain, but may cost a little more.