Farewell, Eminence Richard Hughes Reporter, 19O6- 1984 The world of journalism mourned Richard Hughes when The Doyen passed away at the start of 1984. lt was a year to which he was keenly looking forward; he wanted to take his
incisive pen to any Orwellian tendencies he spotted in the region. Alas, it was not to be. The Club's most famous member and probably one of the best-loved reporters ever to thump a typewriter died two months before his 78th birthday. To the end, before he lapsed into a final coma, his wit was as ready and pungent as ever. When his god-daughter Sarah Monks and old buddy Charlie Smith were taking a reluctant Dicko to hospital, they had to pass a doorway marking the entry to the psychiatric ward "Maybe I should be in there, mug," Dick said to Charlie. Right up to the end, he was in good form. The Saturday before he went into hospital, he lunched well and liquidly with his old friend and former boss, Frank Giles, editor emeritus of The Times of London, a journal as venerable (well, almost) as Dicko himself. It was, as Richard Hughes may well have remarked to himself in his role as a lapsed Catholic, a fitting Last Luncheon. He went, as usual, to h¡s Saturday morning meeting of the "cultural association" of Alcoholics Synonymous on the mezzanine floor where, despite urgings by other members of the semi-secret club, he indulged enthusiastically in Russian water. Vodka didn't make you t¡psy, he used to insist, as long as you drank it straight. He drank it in triple measures, then had a few glasses of wine over lunch. It was the last of his legendary luncheons, gastronomic excesses which featured Hughes sitting in imperial stature at the head of the table and defying others to pay the bill. His major fault, his friends would complain, was his compulsive generosity. But it was not only in financial terms that he was generous; he gave freely of his wealth of knowledge of Asia gained in the 43 years since he arrived in pre-war Shanghai from his native Australia. He was always available to talk to young newsmen. "Our job is a craft, a trade," he used to admonish them. His letters of introduction were invaluable. Dicko's ecclesiastical jargon was one of his most memorable traits, a habit picked up during World War ll when rambuctious reporters rubbed shoulders uneasly with British staff officers in Cairo's toffy Shepheard's Hotel. "Who is the old priest?" a visitor to the Club asked me one day as Dicko gave his customary
BOB SHAPIEN, Yorker
The New
Dick Hughes, the old Australian pug turned journalist, the Asian Far Wanderer, the keeper of memorabilia, the man who knew more about most things than the rest of us put together, for whom every fact and personal experience or recollection begrindcame grist for his ever - justiing creative mill ... He was fiably a legend in his own time
who shared his
apostolic blessing to a wayward member of his flock suffering from the excesses of the previous night. "He's our cardinal," I replied. And so he was, the Lord High Protector of the Press. His friends were "Your Grace" or "Your Eminence" or "Monsignor" depending on his mood. Clare Hollingworth was "Our blessed Mother Superior." Up to the last, he played his priestly role with gusto. "The customary indulgences, Your Grace," he mumbled as he weakly made the sign of the Cross to v¡s¡tors who trooped to Oueen Mary Hospital. lf Dick was His Eminence, Ann was his own private angel, deeply beloved, reverred, respected. He used to joke about how Annie
ruled him with a rod of iron disguised with flowers. lt was a tyranny he enjoyed immensely.
Richard Hughes met his final deadline at 2pm, January 4, 1984. He was aged77. During his mammoth luncheon sessions, his favourite toast was "Absent fr¡ends." All over the world, his legions of friends arè now raising their glasses and making the same toast to a man whose absence will be sorely missed but whose presence in our lives made us immeasurably richer. KS.
voluminous
knowledge openly and willingly and gathered his drsciples from every corner of the world ... I first knew Dick in Tokyo, at the end of the Pacific War, when we all thought a brave new world was being born. lf he became cynical through the years, he never let this curb his enthusiasm
or his zest for life, nor did ¡t damage his integrity or impede his ardent pursuit of truth.
These were the hallmarks of his character. He was always the
first person one sought out in Hong Kong. I remember my return there in the early sixties, after an absence of a decade. The colony, along with the rest
of Asia, was in the throes
of change, but Dick was still the same: He fixed me with that familiar mock-angry eye and proceeded with the lesson of the day, which ran the gamut from what was wrong with Hong Kong and what ought to be done about it to why it was still a wonderful place to live. At the end of lunch, over our brandies. he shifted to the tender eye and said "listen, Bucko, if you really want to get to know this place, find yourself a good
lt was a bit of advice he followed himself, of course, to his lasting happiness and joy. Over the next twenty Chinese woman."
years, when Hong Kong was also
my base, we became faster friends and shared countless bits of lore and information and gossip. He was a walking encyclopaedia. He was, above all, a vibrant and loyal companion in arms, a monument of a man ... TONY PAUL, Readers Digest
It's impossible to be somber when I write about his Eminence, so I won't try.
The first time lmet Dick Hughes was at a lunch in Sydney.
when he arrived at a club with John Gunther, the Great lnsider, Richard was never a notable Beau
Brummel but on that day (about 1969) he was wearing a tie-less, Mac-collar shirt, fashionable because of the Cultural Revolution. (Two things he most liked about the Cultural Revolution: (1) it introduced him to a shirt you could wear in all Asian clubs, even in winter, without a tie; (2) the ill-considered, for the time, motto of the Hong Kong Club: Bonum commune.l When I came to HK two or three years later as a relatively young Australian journalist with no Asian experience, Dick went out of his way to find contacts for me. He was then about 65, long a Hong Kong institution. So many people telephoned as they came through the colony that he had developed a range of ploys to take care of the problem. One, recall, was to answer a phone call with a highly tentative " WeiT' lf the visitor penetrated the subterI
and it has to be said, - his Cantonese, even for alas, that
fuge
a single syllable, never lost its traces of the Victorian Railways debating team he would de- 10 minutes late clare that he was for a plane to Taipei. , But because I was Australian and needed help. he took me to dinner at the old Jimmy's Kitchen in Theatre Lane. The head waiter there obviously was aware of Dick's only remaining interest in fashion that I know of. He led us to what he said was "Mr. Hoojis's favourite table" under the stairs, where we could watch 1972-vintage miniskirts coming & going.
Dick liked to toasr "absenr friends". At the risk of offending his sense of the fitness of things, l'd say " Bonum commune" which, the HK Club's management office has just informed me, means "Good companyl"
TIMOTHY BIRCH, Radio New Zealand
My strongest recollection of Dick Hughes is of a long ferry trip on the old S.S. 'Fatshan' bound for Macao on a hopeless mission to discover what the authorities there were going to do next after Peking had refused to accept
Portugals offer
of
Macao on
a
plate. I remember we stood at the rail watching the muddy waters of the Pearl River swirl by, waters no more turbulent and opaque than the politics of Macao. but so good were Dick's contacts and so good his insight that he soon put me right on what would happen under the benign dictatorship of the 'fat cat commie dog Ho