I know very little about my 'step' grandfather Jimmy Hunter, apart from what my father and one of his friends told me.
"Very British," said the man, "Very stiff upper lip. He was funnily enough exactly the type of man to the run that kind of vaudeville"

I gleaned from reviews is that he was a fine comic with impeccable timing. Never a headliner, but a man who knew his strengths; he was always the comic who opened the show, leaving the closing to the Stars. But he was a great producer, and once he'd got involved with Gladys,(my Grandmother), then my father Ben Brewer, was brought up on the music hall and variety stage. Or so he said, and on this, I believe him. As I believed him when he spoke of Jimmy with the greatest admiration and respect, then added with a steely grin "I hated the Bastard!" But this was something that we never discussed in any detail.

A report in a local Brighton paper reads:

" James Hunter, the host and compere, was a cavalry officer though before the war he had been concerned with banking. Upon demobilization, however, he found himself, like many thousands of other men, without a job. Something had to be done, and he turned his attention to the stage, where since his first engagement as a raconteur, He has never looked back. Mr. Hunter posses the gift of being able to make friends with his audience, and the humor stories he tells always "get home". True, he does nothing else but talk while he occupies the stage, but it is what he says, and the way in which he says it, that has made him so popular."

The Brighton and Hove Herald, Saturday 11th August 1934

 Jimmy's Brighton Follies was by now one of the most popular variety shows of the thirties. In the small print of a program is the name Tommy Trinder. The Brighton Follies is where "You lucky people" started. It was at Brighton that Jack Hylton took Tommy Trinder out of Jimmy's show and starred him at the Hippodrome in Middle Street. Tommy Trinder never looked back after that, becoming one of the few British stars to reach international stardom. He would even visit South Africa as a huge star five times. But he was discovered in Jimmy's show, and it was here that my father always said he was Tommy's feed.

I wrote to Betty Driver, now an important part of 'Coronation Street' but who worked as a 17 year old ingénue in the Brighton Follies, in order to get a more personal picture of Jimmy, she replied:

"Yes, I worked with you father Bill Brewer. And he was lovely. Jimmy Hunter was a very nice and good boss, who put on some wonderful shows, and I was very happy to work for him. I was only about 17 years old if that. Your father was a very good-looking young man, and he was fun to be with. I don't know anymore of Jimmy Hunter, apart from he lived in Brighton, with his wife. I've never enjoyed myself more that I did in Brighton Follies...."

Betty Driver

My father returned to South Africa with Gladys and Jimmy in 1936 with Jimmy's London Follies, the last commercial show to play at the old His Majesty’s Theater, which was pulled down after their last curtain on the night of 16th February 1937.

My father could write like a God when he wanted to. And, by God, could he talk…. like a God. Because of him, I've always fallen for a man who knows his way around a sentence structure. I’ve tried to write it as he would say it, it’s not exact but as close as dammit, hacked out of fragments of notes I've found, stories half started, and conversations heard, as my parents entertained and I lay, curled up in my couch bed, as the meals finished and the guests lingered long after the food was done. The whisky would flow (he was a 'Bells' on the rocks man) and I would fall asleep to the slow disheveled laughter of actors and people who dance on the precipice. A story from my dad ..

"In 1937 to be absolutely exact, I had come out in my father’s show "Jimmy Hunter’s London Follies" to play the old His Majesty’s Theater. In 1936 We followed Gracie Fields, as part of the Empire Exhibition attractions.

We heard the abdication speech of Edward VIII while we were on the high seas. What a wonderful theatre was the old His Majesty’s. Vast, leather armchairs for stalls, bars on every floor, and the tiers of boxes. I still vividly recall the last night – February 15^th 1937 and most of the audience in full rig. Joburgers even wore dinner jackets to the bioscope in those days"

"The boxes were full of celebrities. The prince and princess of Siam, Earl Howe the famous racing driver, Tommy Weston – celebrated jockey, the dark and hirsute Pete Saroon, world champion boxer and wrestler Count Zbysko. The formidable I.W. Shlezinger looked in – not to say "Farewell" to his theatre, but probably to check how the bars were doing. The only time he appeared to like our show was at the end of the first half when Jimmie used to say: "Ladies and Gentlemen, the bars are open! Follow me!" And he used to lead the streaming throng straight to the bar.

As it happened, our little show broke all records, and some of us were retained to bolster up an International Variety Bill headed by Molly Picon – at the Empire.

I stayed at the Gladstone – special pro rate for two pounds 3 a week. Including three meals a day

The dining room… dark as a suggestion - contained signed photographs of artists who had stayed there, George Robey, the immortal WC Fields, Violet Lorraine, and innumerable and unmemorable feature acts"

Jimmy died before the war ended.

DEATH OF JIMMY HUNTER

"With much regret we record the death of Jimmy Hunter. He passed away on October 18, at the age of 55 years, at Weston-super-Mare, where he was with his show, the "Brighton Follies".

Jimmy had been a very sick man for two years. In June, 1943, in fact, he took the show off the road, but by Christmas he had recovered sufficiently to take out his "Red Riding Hood" pantomime, and at the beginning of July this year he reproduced his "Brighton Follies" at the Queens, Rhyl, where a record eleven weeks season was played. Although not personally appearing, Jimmy attended every show, and everyone had great hopes of regained health. When the show went to Weston-super-Mare to open for two weeks on October 9, Jimmy seemed to be much better but on the 16th he was taken ill and was at once rushed to the Burnell Nursing Home with two specialists in attendance. But he never rallied.

Jimmy Hunter, who hailed from Liverpool, had a long stage career as a monologist and raconteur, - and notable at the Prince of Wales Theatre, as a compere, but his greatest success was with his Brighton Follies, which he produced at the Palace, Pier, Brighton. He returned there season after season for many years. In 1936 he took his company to South Africa, a tour so successful that he was to have returned there in 1939 - a project that owing to the war, did not materialize. The Brighton Follies, which proved equally successful through the provinces had in its ranks and one and another period of its existence, such performers as Tommy Trinder, Tessie O'Shea, Betty Driver, Kingsley Lark, and Elsie Griffen, Henry Lutton, Jnr, and Ken Douglas.

Jimmy Hunter, who was well liked and respected by those who had worked with him and under his management, and had won a wide popularity by his charming and lovable character, was a staunch Federationist, and a highly esteemed member of the Grand Order of Water Rats. To Mrs. Hunter, to his mother, his son Kenneth and his brother D. Ashton Hunter every sympathy is extended. The funeral was at Brighton Borough Cemetery on Saturday am, the Rev, L.C.F. Jones, Vicar of St Savior's officiating, and among those present were the widow, Mrs. Mary Brewer, Max Miller, Jack Keaths. Members of the Brighton Follies Company ere unable to attend - as the weeks performances had to be completed, by they all followed the coffin to the Weston-Super-Mare station on the Friday, and thus, as one member writers, "Paid our respects to a great guv'nor" There were many wreaths, including one from the Grand Order of water Rats. Mrs. Hunter who is carrying on the show expresses her gratitude to the very great many friends who have written and telegraphed their condolences."

The performer, October 26, 1944