David Hughes obituary

My brother, David Hughes, who has died aged 83, was charismatic, charming, challenging and creative. He was best known for founding and running the Welsh Fiddle festival between 2005 and 2010, originally part of Pembroke Arts festival but soon a standalone inclusive annual celebration of fiddle playing in Wales and other countries.

As half of De-Em Promotions, David was also the creative energy behind various Stéphane Grappelli gigs and the Jazz on the Hill festivals in Herefordshire in the late 1970s and early 80s, headlining George Melly and John Chilton’s Feetwarmers, Alexis Korner, Fairport Convention, Snuff Garrett and the Rebounds – and always regretting that the Dingle Danglers never gained the fame they deserved.

David was born in New Malden, Surrey, to James Hughes, a brewer, and Helen Speirs, a nanny. After Cranleigh school and national service as a deep-sea diver with the Royal Navy, he got a job as a sales manager with the Morgan Crucible engineering company in Battersea, south London, and later as a financial adviser with Barclays International, work that often took him to Africa.

However, he much preferred launching local initiatives in the various places he lived – first in Surrey until the mid-70s, then Herefordshire, then Cyprus from 1984 to 1992, and finally in Pembrokeshire, where he lived until his death.

Among the ventures which he set up were the Cheam Whitehall Gallery (which displayed local painting, sculpture, crafts and antiques); a brand of crisps that he trialled in his local pub; two separate retail businesses selling macadamia nuts and uncured sheepskins for clothing, rugs and accessories, and – the wackiest of the lot – artificial cupped “bird ears” for improved human listening to birdsong.

Frustrated by his restricted mobility following a stroke in 1996, David moved his focus on to watching cricket and rugby, which he had played well in his younger days. He also loved to bring together far-flung relatives to celebrate the achievements of our forebears, who included our grandfather Henry Hughes of Porthmadog, author of two seafaring books, Through Mighty Seas and Immortal Sails, and who bravely took slates to the world’s remotest places in the sailing ships of Wales.

In the family tradition, David also engaged in conversation with almost everyone he saw, including, on one occasion, the Hungarian footballer Ferenc Puskás. Sustained during his last short illness by a daily half of Welsh ale, he requested a sign on his coffin that read: “return to sender”.

He married June Sheppard in 1962; they divorced in 1978, and his second marriage, in 1980 to Jan Bradshaw, also ended in divorce, in 2013. He is survived by the three children from his first marriage, Jonathan, Alison and Daniel, five grandchildren, two brothers, Jamie and me, and a nephew.