Hugh William Symons (1945)

Hugh William “Sam” Symons (1927-2025) was born to British parents in Sri Lanka (Ceylon as it was). One of three children, Sam was shipped to boarding school in England at 8, having been raised during his tender early years by his beloved Ayah. After Oriel House, where he gained his nickname “Sam”, he went on to Denstone College and then in 1945 to Queens’ College, Cambridge to study Natural Sciences. He was a member of the Cambridge University Royal Naval Unit and a shooting blue, a Cherub and a Kangaroo. He remembered these days fondly, more for the lifelong friends he made and the high jinks they perpetrated than necessarily for the impressive academic grounding it gave him.
 
Using his degree after a stint in the Navy, he started his career on the frozen seas of the Antarctic on a whaling ship; after a stint at Birdseye (overseeing the frozen peas and cherry harvests) he ended his working life in the slightly less exotic commercial freezer chests of North America, over-seeing the American Frozen Food Institute as one of (many) vice presidents.
 
Embracing his retirement, he and his wife, Jum, took off for a two-year adventure around the Americas in an Airstream trailer. Repatriated to London late last century, they returned to their beloved family home in Kingston, but continued their exotic travel during the colder months. Always social and with the ability to sneeze louder than anyone else they have ever met, he was greatly admired and adored by his friends and family – including two daughters: Lucy and Victoria, and four grandchildren: Madeleine, Tabitha, James and Nick. His gin and tonics were as notorious as they were lethal.

Throughout Sam’s last, and sadly, demented years, his surviving wife, Jum, was his devoted carer – finally surrendering him to a local nursing home after a particularly difficult tussle with Covid, she visited him most days.

Obituary provided by Hugh’s daughter, Lucy.