MEMORIES are long in northeast England. Almost a quarter of a century after 160,000 miners embarked on the defining industrial dispute of the Thatcher era, Ian Lavery still remembers the understanding that Northern Rock - then not a bank but a building society scarcely known outside its heartland – showed toward strikers who fell behind with their mortgage payments.

“In this region, they were always extremely helpful to miners,” said Lavery, at Ellington colliery in Northumberland during the strike and now president of the National Union of Mineworkers. “They weren’t aggressive, unlike other banks and building societies. People remember that.”

Northern Rock converted to a bank a decade ago and now offers its mortgages across the country: it is a national player.

But around Newcastle there is a profound sense of possessiveness toward the bank. It might not look this way in its shareholder register, but the concluding line of a letter to the local paper last week summed up a widespread emotion: “Northern Rock is not just a bank, it’s our bank.”

Its presence is visible everywhere. Visitors at Newcastle station are greeted by posters advertising the local basketball team, the Eagles, sponsored by Northern Rock. In city-centre crowds, Newcastle United football shirts bear the club sponsor’s name - Northern Rock. Cricket? Northern Rock is Durham County’s main sponsor. On Friday rugby players and coaches at Newcastle Falcons opened accounts with their club’s main financial backer – Northern Rock.

Aidan Cleghorn, who once worked at the bank, said: “You just can’t escape it. Northern Rock is everywhere. I took my girlfriend to see Opera North recently. They’re sponsored by Northern Rock.”

The Sage, the spectacular music venue that squats on the Gateshead side of the Tyne like a huge, silver armadillo, may be named after Tyneside’s other famous corporate son, the software company. But go inside and you discover that one of the auditoriums has been sponsored by Northern Rock.

All this, and more, is before taking into account the influence and considerable financial clout wielded by the Northern Rock Foundation, set up at the time of conversion to distribute 5% of the bank’s pretax profits to good causes in the region. Within the past 10 years, more than 1,500 organisations have received a total of £155m from the foundation. The list of recipients is long. Churches, arts and music organisations, conservation groups and charities for the homeless are among those that have benefited, and the foundation has a further £20m to give away.

James Ramsbotham, chief executive of the North East Chamber of Commerce, said: “Northern Rock has been an exemplary corporate citizen. It is in the hearts of people in the northeast, whereas all other banks are seen as distant. For all that Northern Rock has expanded outside the region, it has kept its central functions here rather than shifting them to Bangalore.”

The bank is now the largest private-sector employer in northeast England. There are other big companies based there that employ more people overall – companies such as Sage, Amec, Arriva, Go-Ahead and the Greggs bakers group. But none can match the 5,000 staff that Northern Rock has working in the area.

Its head office, at Gosforth, is huge. “To get from one end to the other feels like a ten-minute walk,” said an employee. There are restaurants, shops and a gym – virtually everything that staff could wish for. Another office block is under construction on the site and, toward Sunderland, a £70m centre for up to 2,500 staff, is being built at Rainton Bridge.

Many jobs are not highly-paid. Clerical staff start on about £14,000. But Northern Rock is a good employer. “They’re very well-respected,” said Russell Grieg, Northern Rock shop steward for the Unite union. It is one of the few companies able to offer the prospect of a career path to the top of a home-grown FTSE company without moving out of the region. And jobs in the top layers below the £1.3m-a-year chief executive Adam Applegarth do pay well.

John Tomaney, professor of regional development at Newcastle University, said: “It’s like having a bit of the City of London that happens to be on Tyneside.”

He said Northern Rock and Sage are always mentioned in the same breath. “They are home-grown companies, they are in the FTSE, and they are in the service industries that have expanded while the old industries like shipbuilding and heavy engineering have shrunk.”

The northeast can claim to have grown at least as fast as the rest of Britain over the past couple of years. But the stark fact is that output per head is still about one-fifth below the national average.

At the Chamber of Commerce James Ramsbotham admitted that if Northern Rock is taken over by another financial institution or is wound down “it would have dire consequences”.

No wonder that the Falcons were pledging their support. As was Newcastle United’s golden boy, Alan Shearer. Even the club’s former manager Sir Bobby Robson pleaded from his sick bed for Northern Rock to keep going as an independent company.

The uncomfortable truth is that Northern Rock’s fate will not be determined by its faithful Geordie supporters. It is no longer the local building society of 10 years ago. It is far more vulnerable than that.

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