Avia Ustanny, Outlook Writer
ON NEW Year's day, January 1, 2006, one of Kingston's most experienced living hoteliers, Sybil Hughes of the Mayfair Hotel, will celebrate her 86th birthday in the company of her closest friends.
The stalwart may be spending these days prior to the celebratory event, reflecting on the years past and recent events. It is not widely known, but the hotel was quietly sold in October of this year. Mrs. Hughes has settled into a retirement long deserved.
Just this year also, Sybil Hughes was awarded by the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) for over 40 years of service to the hospitality trade, many of which were spent in executive positions such as head of the JHTA Kingston chapter.
Camille Needham, executive director of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) told Outlook that Mrs. Hughes was this year given the President's Award for her critical support of the organisation at all levels.
"As a hotelier, she has been an absolute beacon. Her property has been a home away from home for a lot of people. Her repeat clientele is very high, coming from as far away as Australia. They were coming to stay with Sybil, not just to stay in Kingston.
"Mrs. Hughes is an absolute beacon of how a small hotelier should be, exemplifying personal service, the personal touch and a special relationship with guests that make them want to come back again and again."
Hotelier of the Year
She notes also that Mrs. Hughes won the award for Hotelier of the Year (1991), no mean feat in an island in which the trade has been long dominated by all-inclusives.
According to Camille Needham, the work of Sybil Hughes was pivotal in the new appreciation of Kingston as a tourist destination.
"Even 10 years ago, the focus was purely on the north coast. Nobody thought of Kingston. Today, it is different. We are just reaping the results of her work."
In business, Sybil Hughes says, she has put God first, asking for his advice in everything. She credits the God she believes in with every achievement in her life including the acquisition of the hotel itself and another piece of property on which the hotel's swimming pool is currently located.
Her husband, the New Zealand engineer James Hughes to whom she was married in 1961, had always wanted to run a hotel. In 1965, they put their resources together to purchase properties in Kingston which were part of a housing scheme being constructed by the Jamaican Government.
This became Mayfair Hotel.
Home owners of adjoining properties were also convinced by the intrepid Hughes to sign an agreement in which their houses would be used as hotel rooms and the rent collected on their behalf. Several of these houses have passed to Mayfair hotel as the agreement included a clause offering Mayfair the option of first purchase.
"We had to work very hard because we did not have much money," Sybil Hughes recalls.
In everything, God's mysterious hand was seen. Once, they had bookings for a German group but were short of one room. The situation was such that the group could have chosen another location for everyone. They were a difficult group to deal with.
Sybil Hughes went ahead and accepted the booking, finding out later that one member had gone off to stay with a friend who he had discovered was resident in Kingston. As far as the hotelier was concerned, God had saved the day.
The hotel did well, attracting its share of celebrities,
none of whose names Sybil
Hughes will call for reasons
of confidentiality.
The most
exciting times
Nevertheless, the most exciting times of her life, as she recounts them, have not to do with the hotel but with her work with the International Women's Club, the Young Women's Christian Association (of which she was head for 12 years), the St. John's Ambulance Brigade and her church.
She recalls a strike at Bellevue Hospital in which she was asked to help out. She was the only member of the St. John's Ambulance services who turned up and she recalls meeting several normal people who were so stressed by the event that they exhibited signs of mental imbalance.
One Jamaica Defense Force soldier a nurse quite forgot his name. Later that same night, a fire broke out on one of the wards. When Mrs. Hughes attempted to call outside to get her husband to come for her, the police would not assist her with contacting him as they thought she was an inmate. Quite an experience.
She travelled the island extensively on church work, a fact about which she is also quite proud, recalling one occasion on which she was asked to give a sermon without any warning.
As her birthday nears and Christmas slips by, the time is filled with satisfying reflections for the matriarch who, though never having had a child, lists many god-children among those she has raised.
A few days before Christmas, many years ago, her husband left.
Divorced
"I never asked myself if it was my fault. That was that," Sybil Hughes says. She was divorced in 1984.
"I live a compartmentalised life," she adds, meaning that she has the ability to focus exclusively on what needs to be done, to the exclusion of the what may appear to others to be the most glaring problems.
Once, she arrived at the Norman Manley International Airport with an expired passport, on her way to a meeting abroad, calmly telling the airport official that what was important was the visa in her passport, not the passport itself. She was allowed to travel.
After her husband's departure, she continued on her own and worked very hard to pay off his 40 per cent share in the hotel. She has made very good use of the hospitality services of her hotel, making the connections which has helped her to serve.
Sybil Hughes recalls wining and dining government ministers from both sides in order to purchase land to expand her hotel.
Now that the hotel has passed into the hands of another whom she will not mention, again for reasons of confidentiality she says that she has surprised herself with her acceptance of the change.
Currently, she still assists with reservations, but lives quietly in her flat with her pet pooch and looks forward to a time when she will return home to Grand Cayman, her country of birth, to visit her relatives.
But one never knows what the future holds. Every day is an adventure with God. Once she recalls climbing the stairs at the Victoria Jubilee Hospital with one baby in each hand and praying that her phone that was falling would slip into her pocket. It did.
Between her relentless spirit, her intense focus on matters at hand and God who she believes is her guide, there is not one moment spent on worrying about the future.
Personally and professionally, there will be every reason to celebrate when her birthday rolls around.
