A PRINCIPLED and kind man who was said to have “breathed life” back into the local steel industry has died aged 84. Langton Highton, a Director of British Steel and former boss of Workington Steelworks has been remembered by his family as a “lovely man” who was respected by all. Langton was born in 1937 in Tynemouth and during WWII came back to the Lorton Valley to a family cottage as an evacuee with the rest of his family. After his education he completed his National Service in the Royal Navy and during his service, chosen to be a member of a crew that in 1956 performed for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, building a field gun from scratch.
THE last time a Conservative won in Hartlepool was 1959, and perhaps he secured his slender 182 vote victory through a little skulduggery on the cinema screen. He was Lieutenant-Commander John Kerans, who had no connection with the town that is currently the scene of one of the most important by-elections in the country for decades. But he was the “hero of the Amethyst”, perhaps Britain’s last great boy’s own naval hero, with his daring exploits being made into a popular action adventure movie. However, early in his career, the Irishman was regarded by his superiors as too much of a brash maverick to really do a disciplined job for the Royal Navy and so, in the late 1940s, he was appointed assistant naval attaché in Nanking, in China, on the Yangtze river.
From a war hero to the Prince of darkness : A timeline of Hartlepool MPs
Residents will soon have to choose who they want to represent them again
Updated
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Hartlepool s residents will be heading to the ballot-box in 2021, following the resignation of their MP with immediate effect.