Meet the Tees Valley's greatest ever Olympian who won three medals

"They all love Jack!" shouted The Northern Echo's headline.

When the train arrived at Middlesbrough station, swimmer Jack, fresh from his triumphs at the 1912 Olympic Games, in Stockholm, was hauled out of his carriage and carried shoulder-high to his charabanc, while a band struggled to make heard its rendition of See the Conquering Hero Comes above the cheering cacophony.

The hero Hatfield was only 18, the youngest swimmer at the Games who had became the sensation of the tournament, winning two silver medals and a bronze, breaking world records, coming within a fingernail of greater glory and compromising much for the future.

Walter Brickett, trainer of Britain's swimmers, had already written to Jack's father in the Boro saying: "I am sure Jack Hatfield is the coming English champion."

The Echo had a reporter on the homecoming train, travelling with Jack on his last leg from Darlington into his native Middlesbrough. The reporter wrote: "It was difficult to recognise in that modest, retiring, broad-shouldered youth with the sun-burnt face, the British success of the Olympic swimming events."

Indeed, Hatfield went on to win 42 English championships, to break four world and three English records.

But he never added to his Olympic tally, and he never went on to achieve the global domination of swimming that his 1912 potential suggested was within his reach - the First World War took away the best swimming years of his life.

The first Hatfields arrived in Middlesbrough in the town's earliest days, attracted from near Hull by the enterprising opportunities opening up in "the infant Hercules". They started a fruit stall.

The Hatfields were an athletic family. In the early summer of 1893, Tom Hatfield was serving on the stall on Coatham Pier, at Redcar, when he heard two people in difficulty in the sea. He dived in and saved them. He was awarded a medal, and he capitalised on his fame by calling himself "Professor Hatfield" and touring the area with his swimming exhibition.

A couple of months later, Tom was selling fruit at the seaside when he got a message to head to Great Ayton, where his wife's trip on holiday in a pony and trap had induced a premature labour. This was the arrival of Jack.

When he was small, "Professor Hatfield" was appointed superintendent of Middlesbrough Corporation Baths. A century ago, private baths were rare in an industrial town of terraces, so the local council provided washing facilities. In the Gilkes Street baths (now beneath Captain Cook Square), there were individual slipper baths, communal swimming baths and exotic Russian or Turkish steam baths.

Young Jack took to the baths like a fish to water. He trained there, as well as in the Tees, in Smith's Dock, in the Albert Park boating lake and, when on holiday, in a flooded quarry at Ayton.

He was one of the first to employ the "Trudgen crawl", named after an English swimmer, John Trudgen, who copied it from native Americans. The arms came out of the water and were accompanied by a powerful scissor kick of the legs. It propelled Jack to become the Senior Champion of Middlesbrough in 1907. He won county titles in Durham and then Yorkshire, which brought him to the attention of the Olympic selectors.

Even though he had yet to win a national title, they were impressed by his potential and selected him for Stockholm in 1912 so he could gain experience for the 1916 Olympics, which were scheduled to be held in Berlin.

Yet, unexpectedly, the youth stole the Stockholm show.

He finished with two silvers and a bronze - half of all the medals Britain won in the pool in those Games, and the last Olympic swimming medals that Britain would win for more than 50 years.

To triumph, Jack had to face three major difficulties.

First, the food. He told the Echo reporter on the homecoming train: "They were quartered in one of the fashionable hotels, but the Continental cooking did not agree with them. A change was made, but they fared little better, until at last they discovered some English meat in a hotel and took up their quarters there."

Powered by English meat, Jack overcame the second problem: the patriotic emblem on his costume.

"The beautiful silk wrought Union Jack with which the swimmers were supplied weighed in the water about a pound, so, following the example of the more experienced, he had his colours taken off, and was undoubtedly much freer in the water for doing so."

Unfortunately, Jack could not quite overcome the third difficulty: George Hodgson, the phenomenal Canadian, who pipped him to gold medals in both the 400m and the 1,500m.

"Hodgson only learned to swim four years ago, " said the Echo reporter on the train. "His action in the water is perfect and his rapid progress is made as smoothly as an eel."

Two silvers and a bronze were reason enough for his hometown to turn out to welcome him home.

Detrained, the Echo reported: "The charabanc made triumphant progress through a huge crowd of cheering people to the Corporation Baths. Flags hung listlessly in the wet, but still the delighted Middlesbrough people refused to have their enthusiasm damped."

Among the speakers at the baths was a Mr Jefferson. "He concluded a very warm and appreciative speech by remarking that they hoped to have to welcome Mr Jack Hatfield home from the next Olympic Games in 1916 the world's champion (Cheers), " said the Echo.

Jack opened a sports shop in Middlesbrough in 1912 and one of his early successful lines was the daring cotton costume, without arms and legs, to which he attributed his Olympic success. He broke more records and won national titles in 1913, but there were no Olympics in 1916.

In fact, 1916 found him in the trenches of the Somme, with his chances of becoming a world champion fading with every month that the war dragged on. The Middlesbrough Olympian joined the Royal Artillery and served as a saddler - possibly because, as the proprietor of a sports shop, he had experience with leather goods. But at least he survived. His elder brother, Tom, was killed on the Somme in 1916.

The privations of the front were not good preparations for resuming a world class swimming career in peacetime, but he camped out in the Cleveland Hills and went training while still running his shop.

In the 1920 Antwerp Olympics, Jack fell short. In the heats of the 400m and 1,500m he came third, swimming more than a minute slower than he had eight years earlier, and he failed to qualify for even the semi-finals.

Over the next few years, he continued to work hard, and he continued to win English championships. He was selected for the 1924 Olympics in Paris - and did really well.

He reached the final of the 1,500m, swimming 30 seconds faster than he had in 1912. Yet times had moved on: he finished fourth in the final, seven seconds outside the bronze position.

He reached the final of the 400m too, but The Northern Echo was not hopeful. "Hatfield, " it said, "though not so good as he once was, swam exceedingly well in the semi-final, and as the fastest loser, qualified for the final. He will not win, but he may be in excellent form and run very near to the great Australian and American cracks."

It was right. He came fifth - nearly 30 seconds behind the legendary American "crack", Johnny Weissmuller who set an Olympic record.

In 1928, Jack, now 35, was selected for his fourth Olympics, this time in Amsterdam. He came second in his 400m heat, but rather than pursue a solo medal, he opted to play in a water polo match.

The Echo reported: "Hatfield did not take part in the semi-final. . . He was a member of the British team which was beaten by France by seven goals to one, Britain's only goal coming from the Middlesbrough man."

That was the end of a remarkable Olympic career that spanned 16 years, but Jack had one last major tournament in him: the 1930 inaugural Empire Games in Canada. He didn't get placed in any of his events, but he proudly carried the flag for the English team.

Jack, though, was still big box office. Thousands watched him train on Teesside and, in the days when amateur sportsmen were great celebrities, he was the swimmer that organisers wanted at their galas across the country. He became the English Five Mile Champion in a race held in the River Thames. It was such an amazing endurance event that Teesside organised its own version and called it The Northern Echo Big Swim.

Competitors dived from a barge beside the Victoria Bridge at Stockton and splashed five miles and 387 yards to the Transporter Bridge at Middlesbrough. The inaugural Big Swim was on July 7, 1930. It was controversial because detractors thought there would be deaths through exhaustion.

Perhaps it was that fatal fascination that drew the crowd: the Echo guesstimated that 50,000 crammed the riverbanks to see the 16 hardy souls swim past.

"On the wharves all the way to the Transporter Bridge were black masses of people, " reported the paper. "High upon furnace tops they could be seen taking a breather to see the swim go by. Crane men leaned out of their cabins to wave on the competitors, and from the various craft lying at anchor came much delighted applause."

Of course, no one died. And, of course, Jack Hatfield won. He finished in one hour and 24 minutes and 57 seconds - five minutes, and quarter of a mile, ahead of his nearest rival, E Johnson of Stockton.

"'Is that Hatfield?' asked one grimy ironworker who had left his furnace to look after itself for a moment or two. 'Yes' went back the reply. 'Good old Jack, ' returned the sporting shout." Or so the Echo reported.

Jack won the Big Swim again in 1931, missed 1932 and 1933, but showed up in 1934 and, of course, won.

"He had a busy day at his sports outfitting shop almost to the time of the swim, " said the Echo. "He rushed away to Stockton, did the course, and was back again in his store lending a hand within a very short time."

Among the tens of thousands of spectators that year was Jack's new wife and his new son, who was named after him. "My mother always told me that she put me in a baby carriage and took me to Newport Bridge so I could watch him swim underneath, " Jack Jr, who died in 2014, once told Memories.

The 1934 Tees Big Swim was one of 41-year-old Jack Sr's last major trophies. He devoted more time to his iconic shop and from 1952, he was a director of Middlesbrough Football Club.

He died in 1965. An obituary described him as "possibly the most popular man on Teesside". He was quite probably the Tees Valley's greatest sporting son: as well as the three Olympic medals and the four Olympic Games, he won 42 English championships, set four world records and three English records, was the centre forward of England's water polo team for 12 years and was installed in the Swimming Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale in 1984.

All that, yet the First World War robbed him of his finest years.