Hugh’s story
Born in Armagh, Northern Ireland way back in 1970, Hugh spent his first four years in the middle of the “Troubles” until his father was offered work with Bank of Ireland in Dublin, Ireland’s capital city. Hugh lived another 5 years in Dublin til his parents met him after school with a “surprise”. He thought it was a new football but, no, they were emigrating to America. They lived in Chicago for nearly 4 years and this was a tremendous experience for any child, especially a curious Irish boy.
Returning to Dublin in 1982, Hugh continued his education in a number of schools til 1987 when he started working in retail management. He loved to work and try new things and shifted from banking to sales to hospitality to business development to coaching and training industries in Ireland, Japan, the US and Australia before meeting Olga in 2005 in Vietnam, as one does.
He was hit by Cupid’s bow and, as they say, the rest is history.
He emigrated to Russia in 2007 and has mainly worked as an English teacher as well as in editorial roles and , most recently, as an actor.
Alexandra , their daughter, was born on his 46th birthday and is the light of his life. As he says, she is “nine, going on twenty nine” and growing up way too fast like many children in these times.
In late 2024, Hugh started to have some serious “gut issues” and visited doctors and took some tablets and ate healthier and exercised more and dramatically reduced some of his unhealthier habits. The issues persisted and he had a biopsy in mid June 2025 and, while on holiday in Ireland, got the news that he had pancreatic cancer.
We all know someone who has been affected either directly or indirectly by this illness and as Hugh continues to say to himself and others “I’m not the first and I certainly won’t be the last to have cancer”
It has been an emotional few months since receiving this news and he has had many, seven as of 18/12/25 , chemotherapy sessions to assist in reducing the tumour. At the end of October, there was a seven hour operation to remove the head of the pancreas and 22 cancerous lymph nodes.
The future is unclear but the facts remain that pancreatic cancer is not only one of the most difficult to detect, it is also the most aggressive. Global survival rates vary from 13 – 20% , depending a lot on lifestyle and early intervention.
Hugh has been actively fundraising to assist with out of pocket expenses and his friends in Russia and Ireland have been busy organizing events detailed on this site. He has been lucky to have some very kind clients, friends and relatives who have transferred funds to ensure he and his family do not have unnecessary additional stress at this time. The aim is to have a number of recommended immunotherapy sessions as soon as the chemotherapy sessions are finished. The estimated cost of these is believed to be about E15,000.
He is spending most of his time as Christmas 2025 draws close researching cancer remedies and getting used to a much healthier lifestyle. He continues to manage a multilingual team of teachers with Englishplusu and draw a meager income from this and some online projects.
His next big goals are to continue to apply for acting roles in Russian and in English and to return to his passion of coaching with Be Your Best as well as hosting regular laughter yoga sessions and launch his first book in 2026.
Onwards and upwards.