“Hugh & Me”: A New Book Written By Buck Lake Author

Jeff Green | Jul 17, 2024

On February 19th, 1972, a 14 year old boy from Cobourg, Jim Colley, was bundled onto a plane by his parents at what is now Pearson Airport and sent off to Frankfurt, Germany with $200 in travellers cheques in his pocket.

He was off to spend six months in Europe as the travelling companion for his 60 year old great Uncle Hugh, who wanted to visit the great cities of Europe but needed some help. Jim knew nothing about travel, had rarely even been to Toronto, and he did not know his eccentric uncle either.

“My father looked at me and said, “Have fun, see you in six months,” and with that, they turned around and walked away. I was now on my own, heading to a foreign land to connect with my even more foreign Uncle Hugh, whom I would aid by navigating us across Europe.”

Thus begins “Hugh and Me”, a new book written by Jim Colley and Adam Berklemans, of Buck Lake.

Jim’s uncle Hugh had been a professor at the University of Toronto, an architect, and a social worker. He had been in a train accident some years prior to the trip described in the book, and had suffered a broken back. After six months in a full body cast, his neck and spine were fused so he had to turn his whole body to look one way or another. This made it hard to drive, and was the reason that he approached his nephew, Jim’s father, hoping to convince him to send Jim’s older brother, who was 16, with him to Europe, as his driver.

As Jim describes it, his brother had a lot more going on in Cobourg than he did, including a girlfriend, and he did not want to go. Jim, however, was only just going into grade 9, and his father John offered him up to “Uncle Hugh” as a navigator and companion.

During the trip, Jim’s family moved to nearby Port Hope, and after the trip Jim returned to Port Hope, went to High School, met his future wife and embarked on a successful career at a local factory in the automotive industry.

By the early 2010s. Jim was ready to leave his job after 35 years, and took early retirement. So Jim and his wife Heather sold their home in the Port Hope area, bought a lot on Buck Lake, and built a home in 2015, where they have lived happily ever since.

Over the years Jim, a self described story-teller, often talked to family and friends about the crazy incidents that arose during his six month trip with his Uncle Hugh, who had never had kids or been married, and had no real idea how to live with a 14 year old boy, as the traversed Europe.

“People have often said ‘you should put these stories together. They would make a great movie, or a book,’” Jim said in describing his decision to gather his stories into a book.

He said that while he is “a pretty good story-teller”, he is “not really a writer” and once he had put his stories down on paper, he began to work with his friend Adam Berklemans, who helped him to shape the stories into a single narrative.

“I could not have done this without Adam, which is why he is listed as a co-writer,” Jim said.

The book starts by describing Jim’s arrival in Frankfurt to find his uncle had been held back in England, leaving him all alone in a major German airport, sitting on his luggage and wondering what was to become of him.

When Hugh arrived, they boarded the brand new VW bus that was waiting for them, and had to learn how to steer. Jim would have to jump out of his chair and run to the back to look out the window in order to see if a car was coming in order to make a left hand turn, for example.

“He was very well educated. He knew everything about architecture and art and I knew pretty well nothing about anything,” is how Jim describes their relationship.

He said that it took him many years to come to terms with the way his uncle treated him during the trip, before he was able to write the book.

“I had to realise that he was not like my parents, he did not treat me like a child. It was a complicated relationship that I did not understand at the time, but made more sense when I became older,” he said.

And Uncle Hugh was eccentric. He would leave a place they had travelled hundreds of miles to visit because they charged 50 pence for parking, but he would pay a high price to go to the opera, paying for Jim’s ticket as well.

The book covers it all, at a brisk pace and is an easy read at just over 300 pages.

Jim describes how he felt when it was all over and they both returned to their lives, Jim in Port Hope, and Hugh in Oregon.

“He, this crippled old man with a stiff neck (in more ways than one), vastly overeducated, opinionated,biased, prejudiced, and eccentric as all hell, and me, this strangely dressed, long-haired, wet-behind-the-ears, teen who didn’t know anything of the world outside of his humble home, and who somehow survived the six month and seven-day journey that was at once challenging and fascinating, with a man he didn’t even know through worlds he didn’t even know existed. What a long, strange trip.”

Hugh and Me is available at Amazon, and there will be an open house/book launch at Jim Colley’s home on Wednesday July 24, from 6-8pm, at 553 Frye Lane. For information, email Jim at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.