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Ted Hughes death 'was catalyst for son to take his own life'
Ed Harris25 Mar 2009
THE death of poet Ted Hughes and not the suicide of his mother Sylvia Plath, finally drove their son to take his own life, it was claimed today.
Dr Nicholas Hughes, 47, hanged himself at his home in Alaska after years battling with depression. His body was found last Monday by his partner Christine Hunter, who was left devastated.
Commentators have suggested that Dr Hughes's suicide is linked to his mother's death 46 years ago when she committed suicide by breathing in fumes from a kitchen oven in February 1963.
She sealed the door with towels to prevent gas from seeping into the rooms where one-year-old Nicholas and his sister Frieda, two, were sleeping.
But some of Dr Hughes's closest friends said it was not until his father, the former poet laureate, died from cancer in 1998 that his son began to suffer the serious mental problems that would dog the rest of his life.
Joe Saxton, 47, a former schoolmate and friend for 33 years, said: "In my view it was the profound impact of Ted's death and its impact on Nick's family, relationships, love and emotional security that was the cause of his depression and eventually his tragic suicide."
In a letter to The Times, Mr Saxton continued: "Ted and Nick had a bond unlike any other father and son I have seen.
"The impact of his father's death was that all other family relationships in his life were turned upside down. Only then did Nick begin to have mental health problems."
Dr Hughes never spoke about his famous parents while escaping to Alaska to be as far away as possible from a London literary scene which has picked over every detail of Plath's suicide and relationship with Hughes.
Mr Saxton said: "I never heard Nick tell anyone about his parentage. He wasn't embarrassed; it just wasn't something he wanted to be a feature of him. That's the irony. He spent his life trying to get away from all this, to find a place where he could be himself."
Dr Hughes quit the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, where he was professor of evolutionary ecology, in 2006, travelling to New Zealand to escape Alaska's dark and cold winters.
Ms Hunter who obtained her doctorate at a New Zealand university was a fellow academic at the University of Alaska, where she is an assistant professor of biology. She has written papers on the effect of climate change on polar bears.
Former students and colleagues paid tribute to Dr Hughes on a website set up in his memory. One student wrote: "I always imagined him up there in his beloved north woods. So sad that he is gone."
Another wrote: "Rest in peace, Nicholas. It seems this time you are the one who got away. The rest of us are all the poorer for having lost you."
The community in Fairbanks is mourning his death. Local journalist Dermot Cole, writing in the Daily News-Miner, told how he had repeatedly asked Dr Hughes for an interview but he had always shunned the limelight.
