BERNARD STUART HOOKER (1897-1983)
Bernard Hooker, president of the Leatherhead Operatic Society, was the son in law of the founder in 1906 and his father, Cornelius Hooker, was its musical director for nearly 60 years. Bernard, a choirboy at the coronation of King George V, was active in the operatic society from 1919 onwards and like his father also involved with the parish church choir for a lifetime.
Interview date: 12 March 1982
Venue: Leatherhead
Interviewer: Edwina Vardey
Generations in Leatherhead
Your parents’ families all came from Leatherhead.
Bernard Hooker: All came from Leatherhead, yes.
How long have they been in Leatherhead?
I would have thought somewhere in the region of 150 years plus.
You have come back from Ashtead to live in Leatherhead.
Yes.
Very near your mother’s house in The Crescent.
Her original house, when we came back we lived in Church Road. Before I was married. We all lived there. The whole six of us.
You were born in Ewell.
Yes, 1897.
One of four.
Yes, twin sisters and a brother.
Your brother Stanley died 13 years ago.
That’s right. He had children and they live in the area.
Musical beginnings
Your father was a famous musician in the area.
I wouldn’t call him exactly famous but he was very much loved and respected in the area as a musician. In the early 1890s or 1885 he was in the choir up at the parish church. It was always his ambition to be organist and choirmaster. He achieved that ambition in 1921 when he was appointed organist and choirmaster of Leatherhead parish church.
His name was….
Cornelius James. My mother’s name was Elizabeth Jemima. They are buried in the churchyard, yes.
They were married by…
Canon Utterton. I suppose in 1895 or 1894.
Your father began his musical career in the church.
Yes and he died in the organ loft in 1964.
Where did he get his musical ability from?
He taught himself. The family hadn’t got any funds to send him for a musical education or anything of that sort.
He wasn’t a professional musician, he was an accountant in the City.
That’s right, yes.
But your children were musical.
Yes, my brother was musical too. He was at Chapel Royal St James’s as a choirboy.
You went to choir school.
Yes, resident choir school. I was very fortunate because in – when was the coronation of George V and Mary – 1910 I think, all the London choir schools were asked to supply two boys to sing at the coronation in the Abbey. The then organist, who was a fellow called Dr Vale, he chose two. One being a solo boy and the other a chap I cannot remember. We had an audition, Sir Frederick Bridge who was then the organist and choirmaster of Westminster, came an attended the audition and he wouldn’t pass the second boy. So they then tried another chap and he failed. So they then said let’s try this young chap Bernard Hooker. Poor Bernard Hooker went trembling into this audition in the choir school rehearsal room and it was the first time ever that he knew he could read music. He got through and was very fortunate enough to sing at the coronation.
This was you.
This was me, yes.
The coronation of 1910
Can you remember the coronation?
Oh yes, rather. That will stick in my memory forever I think. I’ve still got the score, the whole score of that coronation music, the 1910 coronation.
Was it beautiful, the music?
Wonderful, wonderful. Two of the things that I always get a tickle down my back when I hear are Zadok the Priest and I Was Glad When They Said Unto Me, We Will Go Into the House of the Lord. Marvellous.
Zadok the Priest was also at the Queen’s coronation.
So was I Was Glad When They Said Unto Me. I was 12 then, 12 or 13.
First World War and a new career
What happened to you after that, your voice broke?
My voice broke after that. When I eventually left there I went for a course at Clark’s College, a secretarial course. Then of course the war came along and in 1916 I volunteered and joined the HAC, the Honourable Artillery Company and went out to France in November 1916. I was out there for the rest of the war. It was a beastly war. The I was in the army of occupation at Cologne for about four or five months. No I attained the dizzy rank of sergeant, ha ha ha.
After the army, what did you do for a career when you were demobbed?
First of all I went into a company called the Marine Insurance Company which was eventually taken over by the London and Lancashire Insurance and then I went to two private companies, investment trust companies. In 1936 I applied for the job of assistant secretary to what was then called the Bank Insurance Trust Corporation but which is now known as the Save and Prosper Group of Unit Trusts. I was assistant secretary there until the end of the war when the fellow who was secretary didn’t come back and they made me secretary. In June 1952 I was made manager and secretary and retired when I was 65 in 1962.
Leatherhead Operatic Society
Your brother, who was also in the Savoy choir, did he become a professional musician?
No.
What about the twin sisters?
No they weren’t interested.
Did you play any instruments?
I fiddled about with the piano but not very well. But both my brother and I sang. I was in the operatic….my wife’s father, he started the Leatherhead Operatic Society in 1906.
What was his name?
Charley Grantham.
Grantham’s the store?
That’s right, yes. He started that in 1906 and my father was musical director from 1907 until he died, of the Leatherhead Operatic. I joined when I came out of the army in 1919 and I have progressed, if you like, from an ordinary member of the society to a committee chap a few years after. Then Sidney Drake, another old Leatherhead chap, I think in 1927 he gave up and I took over as secretary and I was secretary for a number of years.
What sort of things did you put on?
Gilbert and Sullivan mostly in those early days.
The highlight of the operatic society would have been Merry England?
I should think the highlight probably was the coronation do of Merry England in 1954 [1953?] when we had Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth down to take the two leads. We filled the old Crescent cinema for a whole week. Absolutely packed out.
Were they easy to work with?
Absolutely marvellous. They fitted in remarkably well.
Did they stay in the area?
No, they used to come down every night.
I’ve heard of this famous production of Merry England where you arrived by barge.
That’s right, that was Merry England in Randalls Park where the Hendersons used to live, they had a big house where the crematorium is now. That was a very dramatic affair actually because I think it was the first night and we had an enormous thunderstorm. It was all out in the open, yes.
No marquee?
No, nothing like that.
So was it washed out?
For that night it was. We went on with it for a bit but it was all washed out in the end because the rain came down in torrents.
High tea at the Victoria Hall
You met many of the people who lived in the big houses. They were interested in the operatic society.
Yes. Mr Reeves used to come to our high tea between the matinee and the evening show.
Tell us about the high tea.
Oh that was a wonderful thing. Mr Grantham used to do that with a whole host of helpers like Mrs Grantham and so on and Mr Hartshorne who was a butcher here. He used to supply us with about 20 chickens or so [for] cold chicken and we had a wonderful time.
You got stoked up in time for the performance at night.
The evening performance.
Every day?
No, no, no, no. Only on a Saturday.
Where did you have this?
In the old Victoria Hall where we held the show, downstairs in the…green room.
The Victoria Hall was burnt out, wasn’t it?
No, they are demolishing it now.
Are you sad about that?
Well it was a bit of a fleapit, you know, but it was very handy for us because we were only tiny. We used to have wonderful times there.
Singing career
Did you have anybody emerge from the operatic society who became famous singers?
There was a lady called Floss Dowell who became a professional singer. She used to take the leading parts in the very early days and she became a professional singer for a few years, I think in the Margate area. When we held our 50th birthday party, I was chairman in those days, I managed to get hold of I think a dozen of the original 1906 members who all came along to our 50th birthday party at the new Bull.
Do you sing now?
Not now, no, but for 19 years I was in the BBC Choral Society. When the war came and everything packed up I noticed in The Times that the BBC Choral Society, which was an amateur society, were thinking of starting up again and anybody interested should write. So I wrote and asked if I could have an audition because I would like something of that sort to do and I was fortunate enough to be elected a member. So I sang in that for 19 years.
Were you a tenor?
No I used to sing first bass.
You must have been a good reader?
I was, yes, I’ve no hesitation in saying that. But I never knew that I could read music until I auditioned for the coronation as a boy.
You had an instinctive feel about music?
Yes, that’s right.
Opera and tennis
When did you get married?
June 1927.
You married….
Muriel Grantham, Charley Grantham’s daughter. [His wife Muriel Augusta had died earlier on Christmas Day, 25 December 1979.]
You met in the operatic society?
Yes and in the old tennis club. The tennis club and the operatic society consisted more or less of the same people.
A summer occupation. Where did they play?
We played down in the old cricket field. We had a corner of the cricket field ground.
Were you a good player?
Very average. There again Mr Wilkinson who used to live at Thorncroft Manor, he was also a great chap, he was vice-president of the operatic and he was the president of our tennis club. He presented us one year with a small pavilion which I remember cost £100.
You didn’t persuade Beaverbrook to come in on it?
No, no, no, no.
He didn’t take much part in the town?
No he didn’t.
Randalls Park
The Hendersons didn’t mind you having the operatic society in their grounds?
I think that they had left and the place was empty.
It was empty a long time, was it?
Yes until the Wimbledon people bought it as a crematorium.
Where did the Hendersons go?
I don’t know.
Was it the biggest house in the area as far as servants, estate and equipment?
I would have thought so, probably. Of course there were the….who lived in what is now Windfield…Mr and Mrs Still. They were also members, honorary presidents of the operatic society.
What did the Stills do for a living?
I really don’t know. No idea.
The death of Cornelius Hooker
Was it a very pleasant place to live in?
Yes, oh it was very nice.
Your father was happy here?
Yes, rather.
Did your father receive any church award for his service?
No. We put up a plaque in the chancel of the parish church in his memory. That’s still there of course.
Did you make any recordings of your father playing?
No. These sort of things weren’t about in those days, were they?
The organ in the parish church is the same organ your father played?
I think it has been renovated to a certain extent. But when …..he had a certain amount of renovation done, Dr Vale, who was the organist with the church that I was with as a boy, he came down and opened it. He gave an organ recital.
Dr Vale was a Londoner?
Yes
Your father had a stroke while playing the Te Deum at the organ and managed to complete it.
Yes. One year later the then vicar, Rev Coleridge, said to him, Corny, wouldn’t you like to come play for the lighting of the Toc H lamp? Father said yes, he thought he would. He went and my brother and I were there as well and he had another stroke in the organ loft. We carried him down and he died in the vicar’s vestry.
Was your mother there?
No, Mother wasn’t there. Not in the church.
He died in the place he loved best. It’s nice that you can see the church from your flat.
Yes I quite agree.
Do you go there often?
Not as often as I would like to because I have difficulty getting around. Christmas day of course.
More on the operatic society
Who staged the operatic society productions?
My father in law. He was a wonderful man. He not only started it but he painted the scenery for it and he produced in those early days.
Your wife was a protege of her father. Was she a good singer?
Not wonderful but she was good.
Soprano?
Yes.
Had she any brothers and sisters?
Yes, there are two still alive. Cyril, the eldest. He lives at Chipton under Wychwood [?] in the Cotswolds and Gilbert the younger brother he lives near Worthing, Durrington. Cyril’s about my age and Gilbert is about 74 or 75.
Who made the costumes?
We used to hire those from B J Simmonds [?] of Covent Garden who were costumiers in those days.
How was the orchestra provided?
My father knew all the local musicians. They were all amateurs and we used to have people like Mrs Von Bergen, the wife of Dr Von Bergen, playing in the fiddles. There were two ladies who lived down Park Rise who were playing in the orchestra.
Was your father pleased with the standard of music?
Yes very. We used to have some odd noises I don’t doubt but on the whole they performed very well.
You are a great Gilbert and Sullivan fan and used to go up to the Savoy to see the D’Oyly Carte.
Yes.
You must be sad it has disbanded?
Yes an awful shame but not the modern way of thinking. So many people would rather have this awful pop stuff these days.
The wit in the words. The Americans are very fond.
Yes I believe they are. It will come back all right.
Are you pleased with the operatic society now?
Yes, rather. Still going marvellously well, yes. I’m president. The old operatic society in my father’s day used to cost around £50 a year for everything. They were all true amateurs. My father never had a penny, Mr Grantham, never had a penny, the orchestra didn’t cost anything. From about £50 in 1906-7, after the 1914-18 war it cost us about £300 to put a show on for a week but now it costs us somewhere in the region of £15,000. That shows you, what a vast difference. Everybody wants paying these days.
You have quite a nice theatre now.
Oh we are very lucky to have that theatre
Did you go over the Reeves house when it was there?
Mr Reeves’ house, yes.
Was it magnificent?
Yes very nice.
Bernard Hooker died 6 December 1983.