Chris Hooker (29 Sep 1947 - 21 Jul 2024)

In loving memory of Chris Hooker who sadly passed away on 21st July 2024.

Born in Devizes on 29 September 1947.

Attended Devizes grammar school and kept in touch with many of his friends from here. He also met his future wife Helen.

After school worked at Midland Bank in Devizes before moving to the Maidenhead branch.

In 1969 started university, initially at Leicester before switching to Cardiff where he read Economics specialising in Accountancy. Naturally during this time he cemented his love of rugby, playing for the university team.

After university, he and Helen were married and moved to Ealing where he worked for Binder Hamlyn where he took his accounting exams and finished his articles becoming a Chartered Accountant in 1975.

In 1976 Chris and Helen moved to Highworth to start a family, giving birth to Richard at the end of the hot 1976 summer. Julia was born 2 years later in 1978.

During this time Chris worked in internal audit at Burmah Castrol before moving into the treasury department.

In 1981 the family moved to The Willows where an additional group of close friends was formed on the new housing estate and through friends of the children.

In 1985 Chris moved to London Regional Transport as Chief Accountant and Group Treasurer, commuting to London for the next 7 years. Here he was in charge of a budget or around £600million (£2billion in today’s value) and was involved in buying Victoria Coach Station and extending the Jubilee line to Canary Wharf, attending meetings with Margaret Thatcher in the process.

In 1992 he decided to move to work for WHSmith in Swindon to be able to spend more time with his family. He was primarily in charge of their cash and banking including but had a number of other roles at the firm including management and financial accounting and computer projects including the role out of electronic point of sales (tills) through the branches.

In 1999 he moved to British Gas in Staines, involving a 150 mile drive each day! Here he was in charge of all payments as well as making sure the accounting systems were Y2K compliant - a change that required 19million direct debits to be updated.

In 2005 Chris started his final paid role as Director of Resources of the charity Drugscope, commuting to London again.

It was in this year that his first grandchild, Ebony was born, with his first grandson, Kian being born 2 years later.

2007 was also the year in which the condition which altered the next 15 years was diagnosed by Dr Kim - Parkinson’s.

Chris joined the committee of Parkinson’s in March of 2009 but shortly afterwards was rushed to ICU where he spent 6 weeks including 3 weeks on a ventilator, fighting and beating a double pneumonia.

Later in 2009, Charlotte was born with her brother George following in 2011.

2011 was when Chris was elected Treasurer of Parkinson’s and he dedicated a lot of time and energy into the group, encouraging others to join the committee and being instrumental in setting up exercise activities including tai chi and walking football.

In later years he remained active with the Parkinson’s group taking his grandchildren to activities and spectating even when he was no longer able to participate.

Never someone to be idle, he continued activities that brought him pleasure to the end with an increasing focus upon gardening as well as Lego, stamp collecting and N-gauge trains. He was rarely far from a sudoku or puzzle book.

He bravely fought his condition that progressed rapidly in 2023, eventually losing his battle on 21 July 2024.

His dedication, determination, sense of duty, and his dry sense of humour will be greatly missed.

May he rest in peace.