Tommy Cooper

This well loved comedian who was brought up in Exeter was born in Caerphilly in March, 1922 to, Tom an army recruiting sergeant, and his Crediton born mother Gertrude. The family moved away from the heavily polluted air of Caerphilly to Exeter, when young Tommy was three years old, where he then spent the rest of his childhood. His first school was Comrie House Prep School in Isca Road, St Thomas, before he attended the Mount Radford School for boys at 56 St Leonards Road, under Theodore Ernest Vine MA, the headmaster. The school advertised that it was 'assisted by efficient staff and masters' - no room for joking, there then! 

The Cooper's home was 3 Ford Road, off Willey's Avenue, at the back of Haven Banks. Tommy's parents ran several businesses, including an ice cream van, which was used to sell around fairgrounds - Tommy was sometimes looked after by fairground folk, and once, allegedly, by a chimp. He often helped his parents sell ice-cream from the front window of their house. When he was eight, an aunt gave him a magic set and unknowingly set Tommy in a new direction. He and his family moved to the New Forest, but Tommy soon moved back to Exeter to go to college, which he left when he was fourteen.

He went to work in Hythe as a shipwright but was sent home for a week because he kept interrupting work with his magic tricks. His first public performance was at the age of 16. His career as an entertainer was interrupted when he joined the army in 1940. The rest is history as we all remember fondly his fez, silly laugh and incompetent magic.

Tommy Cooper died on the stage, in a show that was being televised live, in 1984. His remains are in Mortlake Crematorium.

A plaque was placed on his house in Ford Road to remember him at a cost of £75, paid for by Jimmy Tarbuck. Since then, the plaque was broken when it was removed for redecoration; plans are being made by the Civic Society to replace it.

A second plaque remembering Tommy Cooper attending the Mount Radford School in St leonards Road can be found in the chapel of Bramdean School.