Why Ted Hughes’s son killed himself

It was the death of Ted Hughes from cancer in 1998, not Sylvia Plath’s suicide, which drove their son Nicholas to killing himself, a close friend has insisted. Those who knew Dr Nicholas Hughes, who hanged himself last week at his home in Alaska, have spoken out after worldwide coverage of the 47-year-old professor's death, including that on The First Post, focused on the tragic connections with his mother's death in 1963.
 
Sylvia Plath gassed herself by putting her head in the oven when Nicholas was one. Six years later, his father's partner Assia Wevill killed herself in a virtually copycat suicide, along with her four-year-old daughter Shura - Nicholas Hughes's half-sister.
 
According to Joe Saxton, one of Dr Hughes's oldest friends,  the marine biologist had never suffered mental health problems until the death of his father, then the Poet Laureate, 11 years ago.
 
"Ted and Nick had a bond unlike any other father and son I have seen," Saxton, who had known Hughes for 33 years, wrote in a letter to the Times. "They loved the natural world, the outdoors and above all they loved fish. While Ted fished and wrote about them, Nick became a world-renowned fish biologist. So when Ted died 10 years ago Nick lost the relationship that mattered most to him."
 
Dr Hughes tried to fend off his depression but had recently fallen into "a rough patch", Saxton said. Hughes's partner Christine found his body when she returned home from work on Monday, March 16.
 
His sister Frieda Hughes, a successful artist, author and columnist, dealt with the family's tormented history through her work. Nicholas, however, suffered the burden of being the son of two of the 20th Century's greatest poets, alone. "He spent his life trying to get away from all this, to find a place where he could be himself," Saxton said. "Then the stupid bugger commits suicide and starts it all up again." ·