Les Hughes has published the Australian Jaguar magazine (now titled Jag Mag) since 1984 which makes it the first and longest published free-standing Jaguar magazine ever.  He has always had a close relationship with the factory, and the amazing coincidence is that Henry's house at Caldecotte (Milton Keynes, UK)  is literally a genuine stone's throw from Jaguar Racing headquarters just 50 metres away! 

 

As he grew up in  Melbourne, Les often passed through Ballarat and the gold areas as a child.  He went to Geelong regularly as a supporter of their football team and in the mid-1970s worked for quite a while through all of the goldfields when he was with a distribution company.  Les recalls an old lady with a shop in the middle of a forest in the gold region who didn't have electricity connected then.  He spoke with an old man who had been to Ballarat twice in his life and never to Melbourne although he lived about 25 miles from Ballarat.  Les used to go to Clunes regularly, and it fascinated him then and he still has photographs of the place that he took almost 30 years ago. 

Les has been a Jaguar owner since he was 18 (an old Jaguar!) and the marque has been a major part of his life. He wrote and published a book titled 'Jaguar Under The Southern Cross'  in 1980 and it detailed Jaguar's history overall, and in Australia in particular.  It was a limited edition book and is now a collectors' piece.

In 1976 Les first went to England on a working holiday and to research the book.  There he met his wife Bronwen in London in 1977 when he was driving coach tours around Europe - because he wasn't ready to come home then but could not afford to travel any other way.  Bronwen was an Australian too, from Brisbane, also on a working holiday.  The two returned to Australian in late 1978.

Les has been back regularly on magazine affairs, and still has many friends in Britain.  He believes that it is his love of Britain which made the two sides of Henry's life so important to him when he first read it as a rough manuscript.  Henry's great grandson lived a few doors from the Hughes family home in the mid 1970s.  The skills which Les gained in early training in the printing industry and the design and graphics he uses in production of Jag Mag have stood him in good stead in the production of the book.