An obituary written by colleagues at University of California, Berkeley, said he drowned during his regular swim near his home in San Francisco, on May 16 2008. He was 82.

Hooson was born on April 25, 1926 in the Vale of Clywd, said his widow, Cariadne Margaret Mackenzie-Hooson, who says her husband's fascination with geography began at the age of 10. That is when H.J. Fleure, a Welsh professor of anthropology and geography, came to the Hooson family farm.

"Instead of focusing on David's father as a Welsh peasant, Fleure spent his time talking to David, whom he inspired with fascination for the world beyond the valley," she said. The two continued their communications through letters for many years.

The family farm and its 500-year-old home engaged Hooson in geography in numerous ways, said Mackenzie-Hooson. For example, because the farm was located under a flight path to Liverpool, which was the target of numerous Second World War bombing raids, it heightened his awareness of the intersection of the physical and political.

Also during the war, Hooson's father accepted at the farm Italian and German prisoners of war not considered escape risks, and Hooson became acquainted with people from lands well beyond his native Wales.

During the Second World War, Hooson served as a weatherman with the British Navy and was dispatched to Lord Mountbatten's headquarters in Sri Lanka and India. In 1945, he was sent on an expedition to Malaya to invade what today is part of Malaysia.

Hooson earned his B.A. and M.A. in geography at Oxford University in 1948 and 1950, respectively. He received his Ph.D. in geography in 1955 at the London School of Economics. Before going to UC Berkeley, he taught at Glasgow University, the University of Maryland from 1956 to 1960, and the University of British Columbia from 1960 to 1966.

Hooson is survived by his wife, Cariadne Margaret Mackenzie-Hooson; a son, Roger Hooson of Berkeley; a daughter, Claire Hooson of Belmont, California; a brother, John Hooson of Wales; a sister, Helen Wright of England; and a previous wife, Alison Rayner-Hooson of Point Richmond, California.

Acknowledgements

With thanks to Kathleen Maclay, senior public information representative, UC Berkeley Media Relations, who wrote the obituary. And thanks to Christopher Irion Photography for granting permission to use the photograph of David Hooson.
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