From our local rag today.

See

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"Honour for Jack and cat 7-4-9

RICHARD BATSON

21 September 2004 07:03

Jack Hopper only lived in Bacton for 14 months - but he is about to made its
first honorary citizen. And it is all due to a string of pet cats named, or
rather numbered, after the wartime radar operator.

A young Mr Hopper was billeted in the North Norfolk village in 1942 when he was
posted to a radar station at Happisburgh. He stayed with local couple Archie
and Gertie Woodhouse for a happy year and a bit before being posted abroad.

But when their cat Sweedles died, Mrs Woodhouse announced she was naming her
new kitten after her young RAF lodger.

"I said 'you cannot call a cat Jack', and she said she was not going to - it
was called 7-4-9, after the last three digits of my service number," explained
Mr Hopper, now 82.

And all the rest of Mrs Woodhouse's cats, until she died in 1989, were given
the same tag.

Mr Hopper told his story in Happisburgh lighthouse's magazine - and he jokingly
suggested he should be given an honorary citizenship.

"I claimed the right, having lived here for 14 months in the war and then a
further 45 years in the guise of a cat," he said.

But the tongue-in-cheek remark has come true and next Tuesday he will have the
honour bestowed on him at a parish council meeting.

Parish clerk John Harvey said Mr Hopper's letter had been passed to the
council, who were happy to bestow the citizenship.

It did not carry the special rights of some 'freedom of the town'-type
accolades, such as being able to march through the streets with bayonets fixed,
but was a nice gesture marking Mr Hopper's long association and fondness for
the village and its people.

It will be presented at next Tuesday's parish council meeting by chairman Cecil
Wilkins.

Mr Hopper, from Grimsby who went on to be a grocer after the war, still visits
Bacton two or three times a year with wife Joan, when they tour the area he
regards as his second home.

He confesses it is mainly because of the happy wartime memories of living with
the Woodhouses at Quantock Lodge.

The house still stands and when Mr Hopper was wistfully looking at it during
one visit, he was invited in and shown his old bedroom, after telling his story
to the owner.

He recalls Gertie "mothering" him and his fellow billetee.

"She was a tiny woman, but whose heart was bigger than the village."

Her husband was a coastguard and fisherman who died in the 1960s. Mr Hopper
visited Mrs Woodhouse regularly on his return trips, which include reunions of
former radar men at RAF Neatishead.

Mr Hopper said he was honoured with his citizenship, and aimed further to
cement his ties with the village by offering a sports trophy to the primary
school - "for a new race over 749 yards."

And he has even asked for his ashes to be scattered on the Woodhouses' grave as
he wants to make his "favourite spot on earth" his final resting place."

Cheers, helen s

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