Your obituary to Reg Cooper (November 13) made fascinating reading.

I was privileged enough to know Reg during the late sixties, while he was looking after the fleet of Bedford trucks at Hunt and Broadhurst in Botley Road.

I was a mere lad then, working in the parts department, known as the ‘stores’ in those days, at City Motors, the Vauxhall/Bedford dealer next door.

Reg would be a regular, early morning visitor, coming to collect his box of bits and pieces which he needed to keep the vehicles on the road.

And we would all look forward to his visits with a mixture of pleasure and alarm, as he marched double-quick time across the showroom in his pristine boiler suit and flat cap, ready to bark his orders at the unfortunate storeman behind the counter.

Luckily for all of us, his brash exterior was always accompanied by a twinkle in his eye, a gentle leg-pull and a broad grin, and he soon became a firm favourite among us.

Not quite so for the managers on-site, though, as when he’d collected his parts, we used to reach under the counter and hand him his ‘toy’ – a length of half-inch copper pipe coiled into a circle, with flared ends.

Standing to full attention, he proceeded to play this like a bugle, with the sound echoing round the showroom and rallying the troops, no matter who else, customer or otherwise was present.

Of course, he knew he could get away with it, as Hunt and Broadhurst was one of our best customers.

We all tried to play the thing at various times, and, without exception we all failed miserably to get even a squeak out of it.

I’ve thought of Reg many times over the years, and feel very fortunate to have known such a fantastic character in my early faltering steps into the workplace and the big wide world.

People such as Reg Cooper are very, very few and far between.

CLIVE HARRISON, Quarhill Close, Over Norton, Chipping Norton