published, entitled, Not Much of an Engineer, referring to a quip that Hives had made upon seeing his qualifications (Hooker was a mathematician by training) during Hooker's job interview. In the late 1980s, test pilot Bill Bedford gave a talk in Christie's auction room in South Kensington in London. He had been the original test pilot for the Harrier at Dunsfold. Bedford talked about the various fighters he had flown, many of which had been powered by Hooker's engines. On the screen behind him, towards the end of his talk, he showed a picture of Hooker, and said, "I'll have to think about this a bit, but if I was asked who was Britain's greatest ever engineer, I'd have to decide between Brunel and Sir Stanley Hooker, but I'd probably go for Sir Stanley." In a television series produced by Johnathan Lewis, Sir Kenneth Keith stated: 'I always thought that Stanley was a near-genius. He was very, very clever and a very good engineer. Very good engineers are very difficult to find. You don't get too many in a generation or in a country.' References External links The Papers of Sir Stanley Hooker held at Churchill Archives Centre 1907 births 1984 deaths Knights Bachelor People from Sheerness Alumni of Imperial College London English aerospace engineers Fellows of the Royal Society People educated at Borden Grammar School Royal Aeronautical Society Gold Medal winners