Coloured glass in Fleetville

A newspaper article from September 1960 arrived last week.   It is shown on the Welcome page of the website.  It details an important contract received by E Hooker, the company which specialised in glass, especially coloured glass windows.  The building is now occupied by Britannia Music Shop, on the corner of Hatfield Road and Albion Road.

Here is a transcript of the article:
"In September a family firm at St Albans will start on the momentous task of fitting stained-glass windows in the nearly-completed frames at Coventry Cathedral.  Nearly every day for about 18 months, four of the firm's skilled craftsmen will make a 150-mile round trip by car to Coventry and back.  They are four of Britain's top stained-glass craftsmen.

"The Hooker brothers, Len and Charles, have been in the stained glass business since they were young men.  Their father started the firm in Albion Road, St Albans, towards the end of the [19th] century, and they have fifty years of his experience behind them.  Fitting the windows is highly skilled, and they are proud to have been given the job.  The windows have not been made by the Hookers.  They have been so busy making stained-glass windows for South Africa and Australia that they will only be able to fit them.

William Willoughby, foreman glazier (left) with Charles Hooker.

"Len Hooker is 53, his brother, Charles, 50.  Len's son, Brian, aged 24, has just come into the business.  Said Brian: 'I am the third generation of the Hooker family to go into the business.  I love it.  Up to a year ago I was a laboratory worker, testing rubber and studying for a qualification in the rubber research industry.  Dad asked me to join him, and I did.  Now I'm the firm's youngest apprentice.  I shall be learning the craft all my life, but at the end of five years I shall be fairly skilled.  It is very satisfying work.'

"His father and uncle have seen their work go to many places.  They made windows for Arkansas Cathedral, which were being fitted by American craftsmen, in Little Rock, at the time of the race riots.  The window they made for the Cathedral had 11,000 pieces of glass and measured 16 feet by 10 feet.  A church on the Mool River, East Africa, also has windows made in St Albans.  Explained Mr Hooker: 'It is a very skilled craft.  A designer first plans what the picture on the window shall be, and then draws it.  In the old days this was done in full size, but now small-scale drawings can be enlarged photographically.'