Christmas with Cyril

Christmas and the Punk

Every Christmas Cyril would come round on Christmas morning dressed as usual in his smart grey suit too match his silver grey hair, back straight as a ramrod. He would always sit in the same place at the end of one of the sofas in the living room. With a whiskey in his hand we would wish him all the best and Vivianne would sit next to him. I would then take a photograph.

There is a series of these photographs, with Cyril staying the same age, with his appearance unchanged, and with Vivianne growing up. One of these double portraits, probably in the early eighties, is in the Punk era with Vivianne’s hair a startling pink. To his great credit, Cyril actually liked young people and got on really well with our two girls whatever their hairdo’s. .

He always seemed to be getting invites to family parties and events. He had a large very supportive family. His brother George would often visit by car with other family members, and seemed to be somewhat surprised when I would invite him to park in the drive rather than the road. I often thought that Cyril had more right to be there than we had.

It was a useful relationship. Cyril regularly did gardening for us, for which we paid him, and he would act as ‘caretaker’ when we were away back up to Upholland in Lancashire, (where we were born and brought up) or on holiday.

I never actually did this but I sometimes thought when picking up the phone, I could justifiably say, ’Hello, this is the Howard Hughes residence’.

Cyril the Weatherman

Marlene and I were talking one evening to Cyril amongst our vegetables at the rear of the house. It was a gloriously Shropshire sunset sometime in the mid to late seventies. Cyril turned his Clint Eastwood gaze towards the sinking orange orb of the setting sun and said in his inimitable Shropshire accent, ‘Its goin’ to rain tomorra.’ 

Marlene said reverently with due awe in her voice, ‘Cyril, I think it’s amazing how you can just look up at the sky and forecast the weather like that. I suppose it’s working all your life outdoors. How do you do it?’

Cyril paused and then replied with a twinkly eye,’ I just watch the forecast on the telly.’

random arrivals and accidental chats

May 2003. At a Village Hall lunch Nick and Celia Harrington told me that when Dick Hughes (another Hughes) lived at Domas Cottage, which is now theirs, he used to cut hair under the big oak tree in the neighbouring field. An oak tree therefore used as a Barber’s Shop.

On Tuesday, 22 April, 2003, John Nicols and his wife walked into the garden of Glebe Cottage. John had been born, he said, in Much Wenlock Hospital and had lived at No 2, Glebe Cottages until he was ten, leaving in 1952. He had not been back since then. He had known Cyril Hughes and his mother who had lived next door along with other members of the family. I showed him Cyril’s portrait’ He recognized him instantly.  

John remembered Leonard Brookshaw, Jim’s father, as being taller and bigger than Jim. He said he  was very strong and as a small boy, remembered Leonard leading two bulls into the village down the Hughley Road (Kenley Road) from a building now demolished, just up the road on the left. This incident obviously made a big impression on him.

Cyril’s mother he said was small and stout, and had long hair tied up in a bun.

John’s Grandfather, he said, farmed from Price Brown’s house. His Granfather’s name was Robinson but he could not remember his first name.

Kelly’s Directory of Shropshire 1941, page 111, lists a William Robinson, farmer

John said he would write to me with more information, but he would not give me his address. He never wrote.

Another Hughes

On Sunday, 28 September, 2001, Clive Hughes turned up on the doorstep with his wife Barbara. He was, he said, looking for relatives. We told him about Cyril, and showed him the portrait. He was astonished. He said it was like looking at his father.

He related a story about yet another Hughes  family who once lived in the cottage just beyond the Feathers. About how somebody Hughes whose first name he could not recall had shot and killed the Estate Gamekeeper and subsequently hanged himself.

He said he would write to elaborate further but he hasn’t.

There is something intangibly melodramatic about half remembered stories like this. They seem to have the quality of rural myth even though they are probably based on fact.

Clive Hughes did turn up on the doorstep one more time in 2018. I gave him a small repro of Cyril’s portrait and that is the last I have seen or heard of him.