At his first school in Bournemouth he used to stand outside the Pavilion Theatre listening to the Follies shows and learning the songs. At 9 he entered a song contest at the Rank Cinema in Sydenham and sang 'Eat More Fruit' In 1939 while in the army at Lincoln a friend came back from leave and remarked about the black out. Hubert said 'I'm going to get lit up when the lights go up in London' and thought it would make a good song. He'd previously done odd lyrics. Three years later it was featured in a West End show After the war he read a lot of Jerome K Jerome on the radio in 'Let's Go Jeroming' He did 18 years of 'Thanks For the Memory' and in the 60's wrote the musical version of 'Three Men in a Boat'.