Hoppy in Burma, circa 1930
Story and Photographs by Neville Cole
Harry “Hoppy” Hopwood would have turned 104 earlier this week. Wherever he was I am sure he did so with a schooner of beer and a fine Hopwood cheroot. I wish I had been there with him to raise a toast, and listen to a story or two. Instead, I’ll take the time today to share some of the Hopwood legend with you.
The author in Grand Cayman circa 1995
I met Hoppy on Grand Cayman shortly before his 87th birthday. I’ll remember him always as he was that day: a spry, cheerful old gent with an intoxicating laugh and a puckish glint in his eye. His adopted home on Grand Cayman is a small bar called Over the Edge that is literally built on the edge of a cliff and out over the Caribbean Sea. Next to the bar is old lighthouse from the top of which it is said on a good day you can see Cuba . Most nights when Hoppy is in Grand Cayman you will find him perched atop the corner stool at Over the Edge sitting with his good friend Capt’n telling tales and occasionally engaging in the lusty singing of a naughty shanty.
The author goes over the edge
Hoppy and the Capt’n were enjoying a quiet drink at Over the Edge when I wandered in. I sat down and ordered a Caybrew and before I had time to take my first sip, Hoppy had taken me under his wing. All I had to do to was introduce myself and ask Hoppy for his name. You see, it is impossible for Hoppy to respond to any question in a direct manner. Instead of just telling me his name, Hoppy had to spin me a yarn.
“The name on my passport” he said, “reads Harold Lloyd Hopwood, but I’m rarely called anything of the sort. My father, the entertainer, George Hopwood, of Hopwood and Harris the Brighton Boys fame, always called me Harry. Most of my good friends know me only as Hoppy, though once the great S.J. Perelman in one of his less humorous novellas, dubbed me Hapless Hopwood. Frankly, I don’t care what they call me anymore, unless it’s late for dinner, boom boom.”
At this point in the story, as if on cue, Capt’n began to chuckle and my beer arrived so I raised my glass and said “Well Cheers, Hoppy” and after taking a sip added “So, you’re not from here then I take it?”
“Here?” Hoppy pondered. “No, not here exactly. I guess I would have to say I am from New York though that answer seems far less than satisfying because, you see, where I am from is far less important to me than where I am and where is am is right here. I’ve been everywhere others weren’t and disaster was my only companion. I’ve contracted just about every known disease of the modern age and a few that have yet to be diagnosed, but I’ve always traveled on. What I’m not is a writer, though I met many in my time. Writers spend half their lives chasing down inspiration and the other half trying to remember what it was. That’s not for me. Not that I have anything against books or the written word. On the contrary, I enjoy them thoroughly. In fact, I’ve always kept a journal. I’ve filled a full two-dozen of them with various and sundry jottings; but that’s all rote and happenstance – life is in the living, not the retelling.
“Is that so?” Capt’n snorted. “Then why are you so bloody fond of the retelling part?”
“Quiet, Capt’n I’m just answering his question.” Hoppy muttered without ever turning his head.
“I was born on the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year of the century, within the incandescent glow of Coney Island, New York. My old Da was as cockney as they come. From the moment I tumbled from the womb, my impressionable brain was filled with rhyming slang and lilting English melodies. So complete was my indoctrination, that despite being submersed in Brooklyn bawls and Bronx cheers for a good part of my youth, I was without fail, always mistaken for a Londoner. My parents came to New York soon after the untimely split of the Brighton Boys in 1904 to perform their show “London Derriere” and never saved up enough money for a return ticket. Mother, it seems, was no replacement for the outrageous Charlie “Bomba” Harris and London Derriere was far from a roaring success; but with two paychecks coming into the family instead of one, George and Emma: The Hilarious Hopwoods did manage to become two of the most reasonably priced entertainers in the greater New York area. So what if their show was tired as old boots, it hardly mattered, my old dad was a masterful salesman and had an uncanny knack for making good business decisions. Somehow, somewhere he’d find a way to succeed. You see, there was one thing my Da loved more than old London town and that was the machinations of high finance. In fact, he’d only managed to lure my strong-willed mother to New York in the first place by regaling her with tales of wondrous Wall Street. Like most of the American public, George Hopwood longed to make a killing in the Stock Market. They planned to grab themselves a quick fortune and retire to the English countryside.
“And what was it your Da would sing to you as he bounced you on his knee?” Capt’n inquired with a stifled snort.
“Stocks, Harry!” he would sing to me. “That’s where your future lies. Stick with stocks, me lad, and you’ll soon reach the skies!” At this, Da would raise his voice to a high crescendo and toss me into the air catching me just before just before I hit the ground. I always screamed with delight at this, a reaction that only encouraged George to try to throw me even higher. Of course, the Hopwood apartment was far too small for such a dangerous game to carry on for long without incident. It isn’t clear exactly how my mother knocked me out of my father’s reach as she bustled through the door that day. She may have swatted me right out of midair, or possibly she toppled over the top of my father causing him to mistime his catch; but the end result was I broke several bones and spent nearly three days unconscious. It was the first of many episodes with coma-inducing injuries.
“Which explains everything you ever need to know about this crazy old coot,” the Capt’n chortled as he rose and staggered slightly to the bathroom.
“You have the look of a man of words,” Hoppy said to me quite seriously after the Capt’n had moved out of earshot.
“It’s how I make my scratch” I replied… unable to resist taking on Hoppy’s addictive word play.
“Good,” Hoppy said pulling a large stack of journals out from behind the bar and dropping down before me. “Look this lot over while you’re in town and we can talk about you writing my life story when I get back. Meet me here in three days, four tops. We will be here to celebrate my birthday at least…and you are hereby invited to join us. No gifts necessary. Fine with you?”
“Fine Hoppy, of course,” I replied. “Where are you headed?”
“North, I believe.” See you in a few days.” Hoppy smiled as he threw a stack of Cayman dollars on the bar. “And the next drink’s on me.”
Looking North to Cuba
As I sat and sipped my rum and cokes that evening I began to read Hoppy’s journals. Within the first few pages I noted details of numerous hospital visits and the occasional traumatic head injury. Despite these scrapes and bruises it appeared that Hoppy’s childhood was a generally happy and uneventful one. That is until I found an entry about an incident that occurred shortly before his twenty-first birthday, when George Hopwood drove his brand new Model T off the road near Staten Island. Emma and George died together in the crash and left Harry, who recovered after a brief weeklong coma, alone in the world.
But it was the next entry that really caught my eye. In it Hoppy described turning his back on a lifetime of his recently deceased father’s advice. When confronted with facing the world alone for the first time, Hoppy opted to cash in all of his small family fortune and use it all to see the world. The long and short of this being, that by the time the Great Stock Market Crash of 1929 hit, Harry was living high in the mountains of Burma; the proud owner of the newly formed Hopwood Cheroot Company. Had he “stuck with stocks” as his father advised, Harry would have lost everything; instead he happened upon a sweet deal that would keep him flush enough to travel the world the rest of his life and bring him into close contact with some of the most discerning and infamous cigar aficionados of the modern age.
Hoppy never did return to Over The Edge. I was there every night until June 6th. When he didn’t return for his birthday party, I put his journals back behind the bar and headed off into the night; but Hoppy’s tales I read that week still bounce around my brain.
From time to time, an incident will remind me of one of Hoppy’s adventures and I imagine him still out there dodging danger and living life to the fullest; then I think back to my last memory of that evening with Hoppy in Grand Cayman… two tipsy octogenarians stepping off the dock, setting their course for due north, and powering out into the darkness. No doubt Hoppy had a hankering for a fine Cuban cigar.
Happy Birthday, old friend. Many hoppy returns!
