The story of the Northern Counties Building Society is instructive. Established in 1850 in the North East by dispossessed workers who pooled their funds to retrieve a home in the world it grew steadily over the years. It was part of the local economy and society, that most precious civic inheritance, a trusted financial institution. In 1965 it merged with another local institution, the Rock Building Society to become Northern Rock Building Society. It demutualised in 1997 and became Northern Rock, which sponsored Newcastle United and became the fifth biggest lender in the UK market. An institution that was founded by local people for local people and had partnered its region in good times and bad for a hundred and forty seven years, that had weathered four serious depressions and emerged stronger from each could not last through New Labour's period in Government.