SINGING PIT-BOY

Greymouth Evening Star, 6 September 1938, Page 4

SINGING PIT-BOY

NOW AMERICAN PROFESSOR LONDON, July 26. Bob Hopkins, known as the “Singing Welsh Pitboy,” arrived in England yesterday after an absence of fifteen years, during which he has sung his way across Canada, and the United States. He landed at Liverpool on his way to Tylorstowu, South Wales, to see his mother, who is dangerously ill He is now Prof. Robert Hopkins, director of vocal and choral studies at Baylor University, Waco, Texas, at «£SOO a year. With him were his wife and four children, and the motor car in which they drove 2,000 miles from Texas to Montreal to catch the liner. When he left Wales he was a pit worker al 31/6 a week.

In addition to his professorship he now conducts and trains church choirs.

“I have a Methodist church choir and I sing in a Jewish synagogue,” lie said yesterday. “1 am a Baptist five and a half days a week, a Methodist on Wednesday and Sunday, a Jew on Friday, and a Presbyterian by belief.”