G R I F F E N 2 0 2 3 | 3 1 and well made as this, so it is not surprising that the assorted memories of his friends leave puzzles unexplained and questions unanswered. How did the personal diffidence which charmed all who met him co-exist with Hugh’s apparently nerveless physical intrepidity? What was he really seeking as he traversed the trackless deserts of Arabia and the breathless passes of the Hindu Kush? Did the disconcertingly objective eyes behind the donnish spectacles actually judge the assorted human oddities they surveyed? How did the personality of Captain Leopold Lazard (Hugh’s nom de guerre as a circus ringmaster) co-habit with that of the scholar who could, completely extemporaneously, cite the names, and distinguish the doctrines, of a string of eight 2nd- and 3rd-century heretical Christian sects? I thought I knew Hugh fairly well, but now I Some things are best seen by the light of a setting sun, and the sunset of the British Empire shone very kindly on the lineaments of this son of a Methodist printer from Abingdon. His extraordinary life has now been worthily memorialised. Just Hugh, compiled and edited by Susan Maria Farrington and Norman J.M. Cameron, under the imprint of Arabian Publishing, was launched in October 2022 on the occasion of a lecture which since 2016 has been organised annually by the R.S.A.A. to commemorate Hugh’s name. Numbers of Hugh’s friends, including many OAs, have contributed to a deftly assembled, and superbly illustrated tribute which, however, is as provocative of reflection as it is of admiration. A man so various as Hugh could never be conveniently wrapped within the covers of a single volume, even one as carefully assembled realise how little of him I really knew; did anyone ever know him fully? Truly, Hugh was an original, of whose sheer originality Abingdon can be proud – every good school should have its eminent eccentric. But he was much more than a memorable oddity. His life, in all its variousness, was compact with integrity; as he was called, so he served, and as he was able, so he gave; he lived by a faith which was large, subtle and deep. His gravestone bears a sardonic inscription: ‘Cold hard voices whisper and say He is crazed by the spell of Arabia It has stolen his wits away.’ The reality was the opposite, of course – and the spell came from a source larger and more wonderful even than Arabia. n MICHAEL ST JOHN PARKER Headmaster 1975–2001
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTUxNTM1