E. G. Retallack Hooper

Who is E. G. Retallack Hooper?

Ernest George Retallack Hooper was a Cornish writer and journalist from St Agnes, Cornwall who became the third Grand Bard of the Gorseth Kernow in 1959 to 1964. He was a fluent writer in the Cornish language and produced a Cornish language revised translation of St Mark’s gospel which was published in 1960, and a translation of St Luke's gospel in 1989. He qualified in horticulture at Kew and became a bard in 1932, with the bardic name of Talek. In the post-war period up to the late 1960s he ran the Mount Pleasant House School in Camborne and Brandon College in Truro, where he pioneered the teaching of Cornish. For many years he edited the Cornish language newsletter An Lef Kernewek. During his time as Grand Bard he maintained close links with the Gorseddau of Wales and Brittany and he was a member of both.