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Ralph Hooper Interviewed by Dr Thomas

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Ralph Hooper Interviewed by Dr Thomas IN PARTNERSHIP WITH NATIONAL LIFE STORIES AN ORAL HISTORY OF BRITISH SCIENCE Ralph Hooper Interviewed by Thomas Lean C1379/27 © The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk This interview and transcript is accessible via http://sounds.bl.uk . © The British Library Board. Please refer to the Oral History curators at the British Library prior to any publication or broadcast from this document. Oral History The British Library 96 Euston Road London NW1 2DB United Kingdom +44 (0)20 7412 7404 [email protected] Every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of this transcript, however no transcript is an exact translation of the spoken word, and this document is intended to be a guide to the original recording, not replace it. Should you find any errors please inform the Oral History curators. © The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk The British Library National Life Stories Interview Summary Sheet Title Page Ref no: C1379/27 Collection title: An Oral History Of British Science Interviewee’s Hooper Title: Mr surname: Interviewee’s Ralph Spenser Sex: Male forename: Occupation: Aeronautical Date and place of 30th January 1926 Engineer birth: Mother’s occupation: Father’s occupation: Dates of recording, Compact flash cards used, tracks (from – to): August 4 th 2010, September 15 th 2010, September 26 th 2010, October 4 th 2010, October 26 th 2010, November 23 rd 2010 Location of interview: Interviewee's home Name of interviewer: Thomas Lean Type of recorder: Marantz PMD661 on secure digital Recording format : WAV 24 bit 48 kHz Total no. of tracks 11 Mono or stereo: stereo Total Duration: 14hr. 17 min. Additional material: Copyright/Clearance: Interview open except for sections in track 4 [between 01:04:30- 01:04:32, 01:04:51, 01:04:58 - 01:05:11] and track 10 [between 05:05 - 05:08] which are closed for 30 years until May 2042. Comments: Interviewee amendments to the transcript are in footnotes and square brackets throughout the text. © The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk Ralph Hooper Page 1 C1379/27 Track 1 Track 1 I just actually put it on. This interview with Ralph Hooper. Woodlands – born in Woodlands Avenue, Hornchurch, Essex in 1926, 30 th of January 1926. Lived there up to the age of seven I think, when the family moved up to Hull because my father was a civil servant and he got promotion if he made that move. Situation was a little unusual in that my maternal grandparents lived next door, in fact the plot that our house was built on had been theirs and my parents, who both married quite late, took the opportunity of employing a architect who lived across the road and, hmm, so there we were Winton [house name], Woodlands Avenue, still there today or it was the last time I went past that way. [01.14] What’s actually your earliest memory? Sorry? What’s actually your earliest memory? My earliest memory? Yeah. I’ve got one or two quite early memories. Two very early ones, first I remember I was in a pram, I didn’t know it was a pram at the time, and I realised that I was being pushed round by my mother to Woodend, which was my maternal grandparents’ house, and I was left outside the front door, I didn’t know what a front door was at the time either but you – I don’t know what children are thinking, they have no language so what are they thinking, what do they remember in? I just remember I was left there, my mother bent over me and sort of tucked me in I suppose, and then she went in to do something with her – her sister or her parents and I did what all good children do, after a short while I howled whereupon another shadowy figure came out, who I © The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk Ralph Hooper Page 2 C1379/27 Track 1 now believe is my grandmother, and made soothing noises so I stopped howling for a bit. And about ready to howl again I think when my mother came out and I was duly wheeled back next door. So that’s one. The other which might have been about the same time, I don’t know, I was sleeping in a cot besides my parents bed and I suddenly found myself threatened by a caterpillar, I didn’t know what caterpillars were either but this was one of the sort of caterpillar which arches up and its back and moves its back legs along and then straightens out and this thing was coming straight for the side of my head so I – I howled at that as well till somebody came, my mother came and duly tipped it out of the window. So those are early memories, there may be others but – hmmm, no other particularly occurs to me at the moment. Both sound quite vivid in your mind, though it’s … Yeah, those two may have stuck oddly. Of course at that time Hornchurch was quite a small village and it had all the things that semi-country villages would have like a local blacksmith, so I can remember going and standing in the entrance to the blacksmiths shop and watching horses being shod and that sort of thing. Hmmm … [03.46] Hmmm. What did your parents actually do? Pardon? What did your father do? Oh he was in the Board of Trade which is not a very highly thought of part of the civil service I suspect, nothing like the Foreign Office, and he was then working at Tilbury so he used to go off in the morning and catch the train down to Tilbury which was then docking quite large ships from round the empire, you know, and … apart from that fact that he – he left the house in the morning and occasionally my sister and I would go up to the end of the road and – and dance around a lamppost or something while we waited for him to appear, I don’t think we were allowed to go beyond the end of the road, and see him home in the evening. © The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk Ralph Hooper Page 3 C1379/27 Track 1 Hmmm. Did he work long hours or …? I think they were just regular civil service hours, I – I don’t have any recollection of him having to work long into the evening or anything like that. What sort of things interested him outside work? Gardening, gardening, gardening roughly. He had played football, he’d been secretary of a local football club in his youth but certainly by the time I knew him it was the gardening all the time, and he tried to interest me in gardening by setting aside a small bit of his garden and planting things round that and this became known as my garden. And so I sort of walked around it for a while and decided that watching plants grow was about as interesting as watching paint dry [laughs] so I’m afraid he failed totally to interest me in – in gardening. And probably in my teens I got around doing the heavy digging for him and we got together over that. But as life turned out my sister turned to be the one – turned out to be the one who took an interest in all things vegetable and she spent most of her life, working life, at Kew, in the herbarium at Kew. What did your father think of you not being any good at gardening, was he disappointed or [laughs] – Well I supp – I suppose he was disap – disappointed or disgusted or something or other but, yeah, I’m afraid all my interest turned towards practical things. [06.27] Very first construction kit I had was called Cliptico, which I don’t suppose anyone remembers now but it was sort of – sort of an early child’s version of Meccano which all the bits clipped together instead of having little nuts and bolts. And I can remember sprawling on the floor and playing with these things, occasionally having to call for adult support to bring it all together. But that gave way to Meccano, fairly early, I can’t now put a date to it. As I said my father had played football as a lad and © The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk Ralph Hooper Page 4 C1379/27 Track 1 one of the people in the club with him was one Joe Reed who lived the next – next road to us, and he did rather well in life, he became the managing director of Bryant & May’s who used to be the matchmaking company. In those days they used to import timber from the Baltic and went – did everything from thereon whereas I not – I notice now that if you go and try and buy some matches they’re made in Sweden and we just import the finished product. Anyway, he was a little more wealthy than most of the people in our road I think and he took to giving me the next set of Meccano in successive Christmases, so I did quite well out of that. [Laughs]. What sort of things did you build? … Can’t remember really. I made things out of their instruction book for a while and then decided it was more fun to make things of your own, and … Meccano really continued to be useful throughout life, certainly till I left home finally when my mum – mother took it over and she made a thing for picking apples which you couldn’t reach and things like that and – out of a broomstick and some bits of Meccano and an old stocking, and she made a thing for winding wool, she did a lot of knitting.
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