Dennis Grainger was in hospital in Newcastle when Northern Rock, in which he had shares, went into financial crisis. Mr Grainger, 61, a retired employee of the Tyneside-based mortgage bank, had been admitted for an emergency operation.

“I was in the hospital when it all happened – I woke up and my wife said: ‘You’ve lost £25,000 in three days,’ ” said Mr Grainger, one of three named plaintiffs in a legal process launched yesterday to seek a fair deal for small shareholders in Rock at its nationalisation. He reckons he has lost £116,000 on his shares, granted at the time of Rock’s demutualisation ten years ago.

Mr Grainger said: “My wife wasn’t happy – she still isn’t; she was encouraging me to sell. She’s still stuck by me, though.”

He travelled to London from the North East of England yesterday especially to take part in the campaign. “I feel the shareholders are being robbed,” he said. “It has been a good company, a good employer and good for the North East.”

Brian Peart, 71, a fellow plaintiff, agrees. The former manager of a building company, from Durham, said that he had lost “hundreds of thousands” on his Rock investment. “I felt it was a solid company and a solid share and decided to make it the biggest component of my portfolio,” he said.

Mr Peart owned about 120,000 Rock shares, half bought at £7.50 each and half acquired for less. He said that he had bought 20,000 shares in the bank during the last two months before its nationalisation in the continued belief that the lender could turn itself around.

“I bought Northern Rock because I thought it was one of the safest companies in Britain,” he said. “I don’t have a pension. I won’t be hard up, but I worked very hard during all of my years running a building business. This is not fair.”

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