Joan Hinde born 21 October 1933

Joan Hinde (21 October 1933 – 22 January 2015) was a British trumpeter; entertainer and unsung heroine of theatre variety entertainment. 

She should have been a household name because of the longevity of her remarkable career which embraced the widest variety of entertainment from prestigious theatres like the London Palladium to BBC Radio, ITV, and the world’s foremost luxury cruise liners. She captivated audiences with her sensational trumpet playing for most of her 78 years, appearing on stage alongside many showbusiness legends.

Joan Hinde was born on October 21 1933 at Eckington, Derbyshire, and at the age of six she began receiving cornet lessons from her uncle, who was the conductor of a local brass band. Her showbusiness career started when she performed on the BBC radio programme Children’s Hour in the early 1940s. She made her first stage appearance at the Chesterfield Hippodrome aged 14 and shared the bill with American husband-and-wife screen stars Jon Hall and Frances Langford, and ventriloquist Arthur Worsley. In the 1940s and 1950s she continued to perform regularly, both on Children’s Hour and Variety Band Box, holding her own against fellow performers such as Billy Ternent and Eddie Calvert. On stage during the 1940s she was billed as “The Glamour Girl Trumpeter” when she performed for holidaymakers at Butlin’s camps around the country. 

While most of her playing fell into the category “light”, until relatively recently she was the only female trumpeter in the world to have broadcast Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto, when she famously performed with the BBC Concert Orchestra in 1951. From 1955 Joan had toured Germany, France, Holland, Malta, Cyprus and North Africa playing to British Troops in hospitals and camps with Variety Units led by Tony Hancock & Reg Varney.  At the time when her contemporaries were breaking into the new medium of television, Hinde never did, most likely due to ineffective management. Instead, she forged a reputation on the live variety stage becoming a regular fixture with artistes such as Elsie and Doris Waters, Jimmy James and Co., Gladys Morgan, The Black and White Minstrel Show, Max Bygraves, Harry Secombe and Ken Dodd. 

                                    

                      Here’s “Buglers Holiday” from above CD

She was Sir Harry’s choice to accompany him on a forces entertainment trip to the South Atlantic during the Falklands war which followed many tours where she proved a favourite with British forces stationed in Malaya, Borneo, Singapore, the Persian Gulf, Cyprus and Aden to mention a few. Sir Harry observed that she was not only a fine comedienne, who never complained about the spartan conditions in which they often had to perform, but she could also play the trumpet “like the Archangel Gabriel himself”. 

She spent many years touring the Moss Empires circuit and performed on luxury cruise liners. All this as well as regular television and radio performances including a TV appearance on “Another Audience With Ken Dodd” when she performed a duet with “The Squire Of Notty Ash”... a moment remembered by many. 

In 1991 she appeared at a charity gala organised by pianist Russ Conway. In 2002 she made her first television appearance in many years on LWT's Another Audience with Ken Dodd. She appeared as the Lady Mayoress who joined in - apparently uninvited - with Dodd's singing of "The Very Thought of You". 

Joan Hinde was a lifelong member of the Grand Order of Lady Ratlings, the charity which raises funds for good causes. In 2003 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Music Hall Society of Great Britain. She also toured the country with Ken Dodd in his famously interminable one-night “Happiness” shows. It was during 2008 that Hinde suffered a slight stroke, which could potentially have meant the end of her trumpet-playing career. However, within eleven days she was onstage at the London Palladium, appearing in the national tribute to Ken Dodd. 

In 2012 it was announced that Hinde would be retiring and making no further stage appearances for reasons of ill health. She was perhaps the UK's oldest working female trumpeter, and was proud to have been a lifelong member of the very exclusive Grand Order of Lady Ratlings. Hinde married Butlins entertainment manager, Ken Hopson in 1966. She and her husband resided in Felpham, Bognor Regis, West Sussex for many years. They had one daughter, Claire, who designed and made a large proportion of the concert-wear worn by her mother. 

Joan died at a nursing home in Chichester, West Sussex, on 22 January 2015, aged 81. 

(Edited from The Telegraph, Wikipedia, Hippodrome Vetrans & Joan Hyde’s webpage @ Wayback Machine)