Scally and her crew stayed moored in the bay at Jamestown for about two months in 1982, from February to April. My parents, during this time, made friends with a family called the Huxtables. Cliff, originally from Canada, Delia, a Saint, and their two children Jane and Robert, who were more or less the same age as Miguel was at the time. Both Delia and Cliff, at the time, were the same age as my parents, more or less. Cliff was a school teacher at the high school. My mother has kept in touch with them all these years; she’s actually very good at keeping in touch with old friends, and in preparation for my visit to St Helena in 2026, I contacted Delia and Cliff to see if they would like to meet.
I arrived on the weekly flight in to St Helena from Cape Town on a Tuesday just after lunch and checked in at the Mantis St Helena Hotel. I had literally only just checked in and taken my bags to my room, when Delia and Cliff arrived at the hotel to meet me.
Delia looked just like my memory of her, she hadn’t seemed to have changed, apart from a few wrinkles on her otherwise youthful face. I could not believe she was eighty. She only had a few streaks of grey in her hair, her eyes were bright and interested, and she had a lovely, winning personality. Cliff, hard of hearing, is now ninety three. They sat together opposite me, a married couple of over fifty years. We had tea and sandwiches in the lobby, and looked over a couple of photos of us all from 1982 that she had brought with her in an album to show me. She asked many questions. About my mother, my brothers and their family, me. They left after an hour or two, with an invitation to lunch that Sunday at their home.
Dates: They visited me on the date of my arrival in St Helena on the 6th January 2026.
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