In Memoriam

Mum was the second of five children, her father was Richard Hughes, author of A High Wind in Jamaica and her mother Frances was an artist. When mum was 14 they moved to next to a tidal estuary in North Wales and the family loved sailing and horses. Mum also fell in love with Ancient Greek from age 7.

Her first trip to Greece was six months work when she was 18. Dad and friends visited and lured her away to climb Mt Hymettus. Later, with her Oxford friend Sally, and help from dad, they bought a very small open boat called Crab and spent four summers in the mid 1950s sailing the Mediterranean. I am in awe how mum’s generation of women felt the post-war world had no danger or challenge they could not overcome. For more on her childhood and sailing adventures, read mum’s two wonderful books.

Dad proposed marriage, but mum was strongly drawn by her vocation to be a Franciscan nun. Luckily for the four of us, in 1958 the vocation to family life and marriage won out, although she and dad also entered the Franciscan Third Order and stayed ever since.

Mum’s career covered so much. As well as bringing up four hungry and active boys, she was a lecturer of Latin, Greek and English and African literature,  a librarian and a well-loved Classics teacher for many years, and she sailed and travelled a lot. Her writing includes vivid, well crafted and deftly characterized books, a radio play broadcast on the local BBC, short stories, articles and tantalizing unpublished material.

Above all, she was a devoted and very loving mum, to the four of us as well as to many others including her little sisters Kate and Lleky.

She touched so many lives! Her tributes mention above all love, kindness, quietness. Beware! her soft-spoken and self-effacing approach contrasted with her passion for adventure, and her bravery, determination and huge resourcefulness.