I had to brighten these photos
as it was dark when I strolled around this cemetery in Keswick in the Lake Distrct. I’d parked in a car park for the night (£1 -
couldn’t find one and had to use my bank card.) It was so deathly quiet sleeping
in the car park that night I had slight tinnitus for my ears aren’t used to
silence.
Hugh was a novelist who was successful in 1920
and 30s but is forgotten now. He was born in New Zealand and expected to follow
his dad into the clergy. Writing pulled him toward itself though and he was able
to make a living from it early on. He’d been born to middle-class parents who
decided that he needed an English education. He spent a few miserable years at
boarding school and a few happier years at University. Aged 25 his first novel
generally produced one novel per year, writing at speed with little editing.
Aged 27 he owned a flat in Picadilly
in London but moved to the Lake District. In demand lecturing on literature he
did four tours of North America harvested a heap of cash. He was a homosexual
and found the perfect partner in a married policeman (who had two children.)
The policeman left the Constabulary to become Hugh's chauffeur and generally
run his affairs.
Hugh wrote nearly forty novels, five volumes of
short stories, two original plays and three volumes of memoirs. He’s best known
for the family saga Herries Chronicles novels which
are set in his beloved Lake District. He even went to Hollywood writing for
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films. Three years before his death he was awarded a
knighthood for his services to literature.
He didn’t fight in the Second World War due to
bad eyesight and diabetes. To help the war effort he was making a speech at
Keswick's fund-raising "War Weapons Week" in May 1941. He exerted
himself to the point of a heart attack and he died at home aged 57.
I had a photograph of the grave and wandered
around looking for a towering 20-foot high thing with a Celtic cross at the
head. When I found it I saw it was less than six feet high. Oh well. He didn't
join his parents who are buried in Edinburgh as his heart lay in the Lake District
where he'd lived for seventeen happy years.