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Alan Hughes is known as the happy face who greets sleepy Virgin Media viewers every morning on Ireland AM, yet the veteran announcer has a painful past that he rarely shares.
Speaking to Brian Dowling on his Death Becomes Him podcast, the host spoke about losing both of his parents at such a young age.
“My two parents died six months apart when I was 10 years old,” he said.
“My mom died in my arms and I was the only one in the house when that happened and I think when you are 10 years old, you don’t even realize that that’s after it happened.
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“As far as I knew, she had fallen asleep and then a neighbor came in and asked me to leave the room.
“I was thinking, ‘What’s going on?’ You had the feeling that you knew what was going on, but then I remember that I got very defensive when people started coming to the house and I wouldn’t let them in.
“Then you realize and you have this pain. I knew my mom was sick because she had been sick for a while and was staying at the house.”
Then, Alan explained, he went from being the only one who witnessed his mother’s death to being the only one who missed his father’s death just six months later.
See the interior of Alan’s impressive home after a renovation in the photo story below
“I was the only one who was not with my dad six months later when he died because he had been in the hospital. They got a call to go to the hospital and they didn’t wake me up.
“I was the only one in my family at my mom’s bedside and I was the only one who wasn’t with my dad because they didn’t want to take me there.
“I heard noises and went downstairs, you know what it is like in an Irish family, it was 2 in the morning but the neighbors were there and I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ And they said, ‘Dad is dead.’
“I knew my dad was sick, but I think the disease progressed, I think it was from a pure broken heart. Just a pure broken heart.
“I think the fight got away from him.”
The result of a child becoming so familiar with death and illness at a young age has naturally created a sense of fear within Alan, who is very conscious of his health.
He explained, “I have my doctor insane. I’m going to have blood tests at least three times a year. And he says, ‘You don’t need blood tests.’
“And I say, ‘Who pays for it?’ At the beginning of the year I was convinced I had dementia, I went and had a complete brain scan.
“Any little thing, I feel a lump and I’m at the doctor. Everyone I’ve lost has been to cancer.
“When I hear the word cancer, it literally scares me.”
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