In memory of Alec and Olive Hughes

Alec and Olive married 72 years ago and both worked happily at the BICC, but the main focus of their life was centred around St. Marys church. Olive and her mother were stalwart members of the Mothers Union and the many social activities and fund raising efforts that went on. Alec became the Vicars Warden and was very involved in the building of the new choir vestry. One incident, that he always strenuously denied, was that when he went to repair the amplifier that was used to broadcast the sound of church bells on Sunday he tested it by playing Lonnie Donnigan's ‘My Old Man's a Dustman’ which was supposedly heard by all and even made it into the local paper.

Alec of course is best remembered for his work with the scouts and it has been amazing the number of messages we have had from people who remember him as ‘Skip’. He took boys on camping trips to Cricceth and London, taking them around all the famous sites and of course recorded it all on his beloved cine camera. However the thing he loved most were the pedal cars and his garage was always full of boys hammering, welding and soldering - it was the perfect outlet for his engineering skills so much so that he became part of the National Committee.

Olive on the other hand turned to her love of history, joining the Local History Society and soon becoming the Society's secretary. She loved researching our family history, and with her daughter Susan and cousin Joyce roved all over North Wales, photographing where their family had lived and worked. Olive also worked in the library, helping people research their family trees and became quite handy with a computer herself. Of course this resulted in her insisting on having her own computer as Alec was always too busy to allow her to use his. So they had matching PC’s, setup side by side. In between all of this they found time to travel, going to Hong Kong, Singapore, Russia and the Holy Land.

Even well into their nineties they were busy, with Alec involved in Messy Church and Olive still fund raising, however it was always family first; they were always there for Susan, Emily and Mark, as well as their great grandchildren, cousins and other family members, and so many other people who they adopted as part of the family and helped tirelessly.

In many ways their death is so sad, and will leave such a huge hole in our lives, but it’s what they wanted. They hadn’t been apart for over seventy years and neither wanted to be without the other. So they are together now and left the family with a treasure trove of memories of, as Alec would say, “lives well lived”.