Tom Hooper a Noted Non-Graduate
E.L. Eaton
Bluenose Magazine, Vol.3, No. 4
Spring, 1979
College histories invariably tell of the buildings, the teaching staff
and the brilliant students who passed thorugh the portals.
Occasionally they speak of distinguished visitors and special
events. Rarely, if ever, do they mention the janitor, the
gardener, the herdsman, the scrub woman, or the countless other
individuals without whose daily ministrations none of the others would
accomplish much.
This story tells of one of the employees at the Nova Scotia
Agricultural College in my day who, without benefit of cap or gown,
made a firm impression there, and went on to win recognition in a
highly competitive field, leaving memories of one of the most colorful
persons I have ever met.
In the decade immediately before World War I Canada welcomed a great
influx of British settlers, a fair sprinkling of whom chose Nova
Scotia, at least temporarily, as their new home. Among those who
came at this time was an English lad, Tom Hooper. Tom was a
stockly little man, with a ramrod back, a bristly, bushy moustache, a
voice that could be heard a mile away, and all the cartoon Englishman's
faculty for misplacing his "haitches", A cocky Cockney, he was
often dubbed, an error, of course, because he was born far from London.
Tom had grown up, it was said, in Lancashire, a region widely noted for
its cotton mills. But Tom was not the product of any grimy,
smoky, factory town. He was the pure, unadulterated product of a
quiet country village. His family had the reputation of being
professional horse traders, with all the sophicated knowledge that
implies. However much or little of this is true, there were very
few things about a horse he did not know, so when he came to work as a
laborer at the College it was not long before he was given a team of
horses to drive. By the time I first met him in 1916, at one of
the big ten-day short courses, he was Farm Foreman, which meant he had
charge of all the field work, with several men under him, and of
course, the horses. By this time he was recognized as an
exhibition plowman, as well as a skilled exhibitor of farm animals.
A great deal of the short course teaching had to do with livestock,
classes for which were held in the Judging Pavillion. This was a
one-storey, twelve-sided building, seventy feet wide, erected in 1903,
and modeled after a similar building at the Ontario Agricultural
College in Guelph. Several circular rows of raised seats provided
seating for about three hundred. A small holding barn, where
animals could be kept between classes, linked it with the main cattle
stable. The arena in the centre was large enough to display a
dozen or so animals at one time, or smaller number when in active
motion.
Among the animals invariably displayed was a chestnut colored Hackney
stallion, Cliffe Rosador, much
admired by horse fanciers for his high stepping gait. Tom loved
to put the little horse through his paces before a crowd, guiding him
with a long line attached to the bridle. The stallion would go
full speed around the outside of the arena, with Tom keeping pace at
the end of the leading line, near the centre. At a word of
command and a jerk on the line, the stallion would reverse and, without
a pause, go just as quickly in the opposite direction. It was a
great display and no one could forget the precision of the whole
performance.
Soon after the war, Tom left the College for a small dairy farm at
Brookside, a few miles north of Truro. It was rumored he had lent
some money to the previous owner and had taken it over to protect his
investment. The principal source of income was milk and it was
not easy for a newcomer to build up a delivery route in town, where
every milk producer was competing with every other for the limited
market. Borden's did operate a small milk condensing plant and
accepted all the surplus milk offered, but the price was low compared
to that received if one were fortunate in selling direct to the
consumer. Tom soon found a farm more to his liking in Pictou,
selling the Brookside farm.
The early planners of Pictou had ambitions of greatness and the town
had streets laid out far in excess of immediate needs. The farm
Tom bought was well within the town limits and was made up of several
full, city size, blocks. There was a good barn and here he
established a high producing Ayrshire herd, quickly finding a market
for fresh milk. One of the cows, Onslow
Lass, purchased as a calf club entry for one of the children,
became nationally famous for several high milk records. Being a
bustling tax payer in the town, it was not long before Tom was elected
to the town council, and no Scotsman ever brought more hard headed
business ideas to a council board. Years slipped by and when the
office of Mayor became vacant, no one else really wanted the job, so
Tom moved to the head of the table.
This was the situation when Pictonians decided to celebrate the
anniversary of the landing of the Hector, and Tom, as chief magistrate,
took a leading part in laying the plans.
For those not familiar with the settlement of eastern Nova Scotia, the
historic voyages of the Pilgrim's Mayflower,
Nelson's Victory, or even
Noah's Ark, all pale into
insignificance compared to the arrival of the Hector in Pictou Harbour on
September 15, 1773, with her load of Scottish settlers. The
aristocrats and commoners of county and town went all out to
celebrate. It was truly a gala occasion and nothing was
overlooked that would add to the brilliance of the event. The
right political strings were pulled so that the Mother Country
dispatched a navy cruiser in recognition of the importance of New
Scotland. Came the big day, kilts were shaken out of moth balls,
buttons and buckles were polished, pipe music filled the air, and those
who "had the Gaelic" were freely displaying their superiority to the
stupid ones who could only converse in the acquired English.
Suddenly some one realized that the little mayor had neither kilt,
gaelic nor even a Scottish burr on his tongue, and anything he might
say would have that unmistakeable Lancashire accent. What a
disaster! It was too late to run another election, so the best
thing that could be thought of was to leave him quietly behind when the
welcoming party went out to greet the visiting cruiser. But Tom
had not been reared in the rough and tough school of horse trading for
nothing. He smelled the under cover intentions and quickly made
his own plans. When the first boat left shore he was on board,
and he was the first man to climb up the side of the cruiser. At
the rail he was greeted by the commander. The two exchanged a
long and searching look, then an equally long hand shake, and
disappeared below deck, not to be seen all the rest of the day.
The other civic dignitaries were received by the second and third
officers in what was, by comparison, a cool and casual reception.
Days later the story came out. The commander and Tom had grown up
together in the same little Lancashire village. When Tom came to
Canada the other lad had joined the navy. Years of service, four
of them in active duty during the war, had brought promotion, and for
this hard-bitten sailor the garden party function in Pictou had been an
unwelcome assignment. To be rescued in this way by an old chum
was an event that could not be celebrated otherwise than in private,
and celebrate they did in the best traditions of the British Navy.
A few more years slipped by, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth were
visiting North America. The official tour, guided by Prime
Minister MacKenzie King, brought the Royal party by train from New
Brunswick to Charlottetown, where they were met by the royal yacht and
landed at Pictou for their first entry to Nova Scotia. Angus L.
Macdonald, Premier of Nova Scotia, was on hand to welcome them, and, of
course, Tom as Mayor of the town, had to be the first to offer his
greeting. Putting aside his barn overalls, decked in top hat and
morning clothes, Tom was fully prepared with a carefully written
address. When the time came to read it, hat and glasses came into
conflict, so the hat was passed to the man beside him. Later one
of the neighbors remonstrated that Tom should not have made the Prime
Minister of Canada hold his hat. Said Tom in no uncertain tones,
"Some un 'ad to 'old the domned 'at."
When World War 2 broke, the Pictou Shipyards quickly became strained to
the limit in replacing and repairing war losses. Building space
in the town was soon at a premium, land became too high-priced to farm,
and the Hooper property reverted to that for which it had been designed
so many years before. The barn is gone, the long, straight rows
of turnips and mangels are all built over, and the years have also
claimed Tom, one more notable in the long and storied past of that
historic county.