User:Boatgypsy/Vera Hockman

Vera Hockman was a semi-professional violinist born in London 1896, died 1963.

A relationship that developed between her and the ageing Edward Elgar, forty years her senior, is thought to have been the instigation of the late burst of creativity seen in Elgar in the last two years of his life.

Vera was the daughter of a Jewish diamond merchant, and had been brought up in fashionable London society. She married Joseph Hockman, a rabbi, when she was nineteen. The they had two children, John and Dulcie, but by the late Twenties the marriage had fallen apart and Vera focused on her work as a semi-professional violinist. Her husband refused a divorce.

She was a close friend of the composer Vaughan Williams, whom she called "Uncle Ralph", but regarded Elgar as her true hero. After meeting him, she became so infatuated that she wrote an account of their meeting, calling it "The Story of November 7, 1931." The account, an original copy of which Mr Allen discovered, begins with a description of her feelings before Elgar's visit to Croydon, in which she writes: "My one positive thought was that I must know every note in order to give my whole attention, body and soul, to Him."

Afterwards, Elgar, who had been instantly attracted to Vera, sent a message that he wished to meet her. Within three days they attended a party together, and the day after Elgar wrote to "Mrs Hockman" begging to see her again. Less than a fortnight later the couple were downing cocktails in Croydon's Shirley Park Hotel and arranging to meet at Elgar's nine-bedroom country home, Marl Bank in Worcestershire. By December 10, Elgar was writing to Vera as his "Sweetest and Dearest", signing off "Love ever, E". Although his close friend George Bernard Shaw prompted Elgar to write a new symphony, Mr Allen suggests that it was Vera who inspired him.

Elgar was commissioned by the BBC in December 1932 and began assembling old material to incorporate into the new symphony. He completed parts of the work, including a main theme which he named "V.H.'s Theme" after Vera.

In September 1933, long before completing the symphony, he was diagnosed as having an inoperable cancer. He died on February 23, 1934. When Vera died in March 1963, her husband at the time, Don Cheeseman, at Vera's request burned most of the letters Elgar had written to her. Mr Allen, however, believes Elgar and Vera remained deeply in love until the end.