Always home: Phillip Hughes & a Macksville love story

Beyond the back fence of the old brick house on East Street, past the wet green paddocks and the moseying black cows, there stands a bridge. Not yet a decade old, this bridge straddles the Nambucca River with the sort of structural integrity one would expect from such a modern build. But it's a no-frills bridge, all heft and grey-white concrete might, designed to rush drivers past small country towns like Macksville. Into the endless Pacific Highway it unassumingly blends, an homage to the force of function, and without care for flair.

Which, for cricket fans at least, is a crying shame. That's because, when it came to naming this particular bridge, they did so in honour of a little left-hander who possessed flair by the bucketload.

"I never used to get when people would say he was ugly (to watch)," says Usman Khawaja. "I was like, 'Are you watching the same Hughesy I'm watching? I love watching this guy; when he's flowing, he's one of my favourites to watch'."

As Virginia Hughes looks out her kitchen window, the cars and trucks moving north and south across Phillip Hughes Bridge occasionally catch her eye. It feels a lifetime ago – but also, just a blink – that from the very same vantage point she would watch over all three of her kids as they played in the backyard, then wheeled out into those sometimes-marshy paddocks just a lofted straight drive from the property perimeter.

"Jason and Phillip would hit their golf balls out there, too" Virginia grins, "and it'd be their sister's job to go and collect them."

From the adjoining loungeroom, on the other side of the kitchen counter, Megan nods along to the story, confirming her role as a very young, very willing extra in her brothers' theatre of backyard dreams. They were lofty dreams, too, of Baggy Greens and hundreds and round-the-world heroics.

"The goals Phillip had were very aspirational," says Jason, the older Hughes brother by two years. "But they were very attainable."

As ambitious as he was, it seems reasonable to suggest that even Phillip Joel Hughes never quite considered the prospect of a bridge being named for him in Macksville, his beloved hometown. Let alone one that now dominates the horizon from the very backyard that served as the cradle for a cricket career which, a decade after his death, continues to be celebrated.

* * *

In the hallway of the Hughes family home hangs a canvas painting of a herd of cattle. It is a simple artwork but, Virginia says, was very much a favourite of Phillip's, and so it remains on display. From the caps in the foyer, to the photos in the lounge, to the bats on lined up out back, there are reminders of him everywhere. And why not? For the Hughes family – Virginia and Greg, Jason and Megan – middle child Phillip and his wondrous cricketing exploits represented a shining light in their lives; his radiant personality and the sacred, unique bonds he shared with each of them were sources of excitement, optimism and happiness.

In the red-brick home they built on East Street around 40 years ago, it would be easy for Virginia and Greg to sit in this milieu permanently. And for a while, that's exactly what happened. Grief, and all the emotions that can come with it, stopped them in their tracks. It was a complicated time. So much so that the Hughes family still isn't comfortable speaking about many elements of it. But when you're country-raised – all stoic and stiff upper-lip – you're hardwired to simply get on with it, even in the most trying circumstances. It was Phillip's modus operandi throughout his tumultuous five-year journey at the top level, it is a credo Megan lives by on the farm, and eventually, it was an unconscious influence that nudged Virginia and Greg on from their inertia.  

So too did Megan. She was yet to turn 20 when she abandoned her studies to return from Sydney to Macksville. It was not long after Phillip's death, and it came as a godsend for Virginia and Greg, as she knew it would. For her stricken parents, Megan was at once a crutch and a way forward; her commitment to maintaining – and growing – what had been inherited from Phillip as the family farm and business made her a steady pilot through the turmoil. She jettisoned some of her aspirations, and hit pause on working through her own grief, because – as is the Hughes way – her priorities lay with her family.

"I knew I had to go," she reflects. "I had to be at home."

Megan packed up and left Sydney behind. She hasn't returned to the SCG, where she was with Virginia on November 25, 2014. Of course, the memories of the day remain, an immovable shadow over that chapter of her life. But when she returned to Macksville, she did so with the happiest aspect of her Sydney world in tow. Almost 10 years on, Curtis remains firmly by her side. He is affable, caring, and a proactive force on the Hughes family farm.

"And the way he treats Megan," Virginia smiles, "like a queen."

For a long time – counted in years, not months – the family struggled to make sense of their loss, and all that surrounded it. Why had this billion-to-one tragedy been inflicted upon Phillip? And by extension, upon them? The sporting world had reacted with a tsunami of compassion – Greg and Virginia still have the thousands of sympathy cards as testament to that – but when the last of the television cameras left Macksville, and the last bat was brought back inside, the Hughes' family's new reality did not magically disappear with them.

Through that time, Megan felt disillusioned with the world. She was frustrated as she kept half an eye on what to her looked like little more than politics and posturing. She was a teenager when her brother died. The baby sister, he used to dote on her when they were kids. It sounds trite to simply say it, but spend some time with Megan and you can almost feel the specialness of their connection. After Phillip moved to Sydney, it was Megan who would text him photos of his bulls, which he proudly showed anyone who cared to look. It was Megan who spent a day ferrying Phillip's passport halfway around the country, waiting nervously at two different airports so her brother wouldn't miss an important international flight. And so it is Megan who carries on his other legacy; that as a Macksville farmer.

Right now though, nostalgia has her. Images in her mind of Phillip smiling and dancing and carrying on as the life of her 18th birthday party, in the backyard at East Street, still burn bright.

"The deejay was meant to finish at midnight," she grins. "Phillip asked him how much it would cost to keep going. And the guy was from Coffs Harbour (45 minutes away), but Phillip got him to keep playing, so the party kept going."

The memory remains vivid to her, that very backyard just metres away, through the flyscreen door that leads onto a back porch that Greg insisted was included when they designed the place well before the children were born. Beside Megan on the lounge, Curtis takes advantage of a rare break from his farmwork, and dozes off. Greg, too, has taken his leave, headed for a much-needed rest after an early start and a couple of long, emotionally draining conversations.

Virginia stands court in the kitchen, the same spot from which she stood as casual umpire all those years ago. She rolls her eyes and shakes her head at Megan's recounting of that 18th birthday party, and intermittently buzzes about the place with purpose. Hers is a warm, motherly presence. More than once she refers to "our beautiful Phillip". Amid the spectre of loss that looms over this room, to hear her talk about her love for her three kids is both heartening and heartbreaking.

"My children know they've always been loved," she says. "Like all mothers, we try to be the best mums we can be, to guide them. They're all very respectful, and Phillip was a kind and respectful young man."

From her safe haven of the kitchen, Virginia is quiet for a time; perhaps lost in the past, perhaps comfortable in the silence. But soon enough her voice again fills the air. This feels like a long-practiced habit. Her contributions alternate between cheeky chirping and, in her more contemplative moments, regrets at what might have been. Not just for Phillip, but for Megan as well.

"Isn't she smart?" she whispers when her daughter is out of earshot. "She could've been an amazing lawyer. But she came home for us, and she's been amazing."

Megan as family driving force becomes a recurring theme across these mild October days in Macksville. In fact, our very presence is largely down to her. When the notion of a documentary celebrating Phillip's life was brought to the family, it was Megan who seized the day.

"For Phillip's legacy, and for our family, we have to do this," she told her parents and Jason. "But only once."

It was time.

* * *

Daybreak out on the farm. As the fog clears and the sun rises from behind the hills that divide Macksville from the sparkling coastline of northern New South Wales, Megan and Curtis get to work. They have a couple of potential clients coming to Four O Eight Angus to inspect some bulls this morning, so the animals need to be in pristine condition. Before the day is done, they will have sold three of them, to go with another that was purchased 24 hours earlier. It's good business, the sales satisfying rewards for their toil.

In seven years out on the property on Taylors Arm Road – not a five-minute drive along a looping descent away from Macksville's main drag – they have been through fire, drought and a couple of floods. Constantly, it seems, things are being sent to test the Hughes family.

"We've had a few challenging seasons," understates Greg, "but you've got to learn to live with those sorts of things, and move on."

When Phillip died, the responsibility of the (relatively) little property he had purchased a couple of years earlier fell largely to Greg. In a time of torment, it gave him purpose. Then the cavalry arrived in Megan and Curtis. It soon became evident they were the ideal fit to take over the farm, as well as the business, on a full-time basis. Together the three of them worked hard as a family unit, proudly and resolutely continuing a dream that otherwise would have been lost with Phillip.

Megan says she feels "surrounded" by her brother when she is out here, and it isn't difficult to understand why. His presence is apparent in 'Usman' the bull standing proudly amid a long-grassed paddock, not far from the house; in the 'Cut-shot Kelpies' breeding program they've undertaken with their beloved dogs, Nala and Ellie; and in the branding of Four O Eight Angus, the business name Phillip landed on as a tribute to his Test cap number.

"I like to look at it like there is a little piece of legacy of him here," Megan says. "So many of the things that we do, we bring in memories of Phillip, where we utilise things we've learned from him, and connect the farming with his other love of cricket. To really have both sort of entwined here on the farm, I think that he would love that."

Just as much though, it's what is unseen that matters to the Hughes family. They are a private clan, who have actively avoided the spotlight this past decade. Their memories of Phillip on this farm are theirs alone. Beyond the tributes and the business taglines, the significance of this place to him is truly what makes it significant for them.

"He's everywhere here," Megan says. "He loved being on the back hill of the property, but every paddock, every inch of this farm he's been around … this place was paradise to him."

Greg showed Phillip the hard labour involved in banana farming (from which he had made his livelihood in Macksville, a region whose history is steeped in the practice) but in time it was clear that cricket would take his boy to more distant horizons. Their shared passion though was cattle, and that stayed true even as Greg partnered Phillip on his remarkable cricketing rise. There is a twinkle in his watery eyes when he speaks of him, and a slightly lopsided grin that reveals his love.

"When he started making those school rep sides, you had to start travelling," he says. "Well he was the only one (locally) going, and he basically said, 'Oh, Dad, you're going to take me?'

"Well, you do that as a parent, you know? So it was the start of many journeys, Phillip and I, in the car. I suppose half the time we were talking dribble … and Phillip would get lost riding around Macksville on his push bike, and he's the navigator!

"But we ended up getting to every game, so it worked. And when we'd get back home, we'd stop in the car, and he'd always put his hand out (to shake) and he'd go, 'Thanks very much, Dad'. Never failed – he said it every time."

And it is something in the way he says it that makes it clear; those traits in his son – the respectfulness, the kindness that Virginia called out from her kitchen – will forever matter more to Greg than anything Phillip achieved on the cricket field.

* * *

Jason Hughes wants to be in Macksville this week but his apology comes with an impressive excuse: his wife Dani gave birth to their second son, Billy, only a couple of days ago. Virginia and Greg are thrilled to have another grandchild in the mix; their next move is to find the right time to fly to Sydney to meet the latest addition to their growing family.

Jason lived with Phillip not only on East Street but at Breakfast Point in Sydney as well, right around the time his little brother's career was taking off. He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Phillip's cricketing travails, and was an accomplished player himself on the Sydney grade scene for some years, with Wests, Mosman and Randwick-Petersham. He counts his days playing with Phillip at Wests as among his most cherished.

It took him many years to emerge from the depths following the death of his brother. Time and a growing determination helped him pick up the pieces.

"It was probably five years after Phil's passing (that I turned a corner)," he says. "Like, it took me some time. The first year was tough. I didn't even know what to do."

As was once the case with his brother, Jason calls home all the time. He constantly keeps himself in the loop of the Hughes happenings in Macksville from his beautiful home in Croydon Park, in Sydney's inner-west, even as he and Dani navigate through the early years of parenthood, and challenges both small and significant.

"(I'm) always on the phone to Dad," he says. "When I want to chat about something, or if something's going on. There's a lot of trust there. I'm very close to Mum and Dad, and my sister."

Like Greg, Jason was there for his brother's cricket origin story. He remembers the pre-superhero days, back when he and his dad had to convince a seven-year-old Phillip to even play.

"We were short by two or three players," he says. "And (Phillip) used to whinge about, 'Oh, is it going to be a hard ball?'

"I think that's when he started, like, loving the game. But you don't know, at that age, if they're going to be any good."

Soon enough though, they did. People in Macksville started taking note of when the Hughes' truck was parked at the local nets. Across many afternoons, Phillip's battles with the bowling machine took place in front of a small, invested crowd of onlookers. It was just another page in the legend.

When he casts his mind back over his brother's career, it is funny to hear the subtle brotherly barbs Jason dishes out amid the loving praise: Phillip was never out in the backyard, not in Umpire Mum's eyes anyway; he maybe could've scored more Test hundreds (he was out three times in the 80s); and as a bowler, well, he made a very good batter ("I'm happy to call it 'not great bowling'").

Greg witnessed the evolution of his boys' relationship across the years and recalls the way Jason was there for Phillip during those middle teen years, where guidance from a respected older sibling is sometimes more readily welcomed than from a parent. A sliding doors moment could have happened around that time; when Jason finished school, he considered making the move to Brisbane with some mates, and little brother cottoned onto the notion.

"I think Phillip just thought: I might follow Jason," Greg says, smiling. "I think he just thought it was a way out of school."

According to Greg, Phillip didn't necessarily look up to his big brother, simply because he was a young man on his own path. Yet that path at least crossed over the one walked by Jason, whose experiences he drew from when he understood it was wise to do so.

"They were real brothers, you know, and that's it," he says. "And when Phillip did get to Sydney, it wasn't long before Jason was down there. It was just that real, typical brotherly love."

Sitting in his suburban backyard, as his three-year-old boy Charlie plays quietly nearby, Jason pauses to consider what Phillip might be doing now. He ponders the two facets of his brother's life, which were worlds apart yet inextricably linked.

"It kills me not knowing where his record could be today," he says. "I'm sure he'd probably have 100 Tests next to his name; he just kept fighting, kept coming back."

And if Phillip had given up cricket by now, and headed back to Macksville as his 36th birthday ticked over?

"He had this saying," Jason says. "'I hit cover drives and cut shots – the more I do that, I can buy more cattle, and I can spend more time with my family'.

"So he'd be on the farm, with Mum, Dad and Megan, and I'm sure he'd have a big farm by now."

* * *

The beaten-up old sign beside Dudley St still reads 'Thistle Park', but Macksville locals have known it for a little while now by its new title: Phillip Hughes Oval. The white picket fence, the pavilion, the carpark and the larger-than-life sign detailing the cricket career of the town's favourite son are all part of a recent upgrade, at once a tribute to his remarkable life, and a sad reminder of his death.

Mitch Lonergan was Phillip's best mate. The two were born at Macksville Hospital two days apart, then spent the best part of the next two decades laughing and crying and playing together. And while time and distance separated them once they moved into adulthood, they stayed as close as brothers. One story goes that Phillip – who was on tour in India – called Mitch during his bridal waltz; Mitch answered, and that about sums it up. Sometimes Mitch finds himself drawn to this vast expanse of green, reflecting out loud to the ghost of his mate.

"It's a beautiful spot here," he says. "I often come and have a chat."

Lonergan moved home to Macksville from Brisbane a year or so ago with his wife Brooke and their three little boys. The town is in his blood, and he travels its roads frequently now in his job as a courier, which he has recently inherited from his old man. He feels the same affinity with Macksville that Phillip did, and so he can communicate clearly how this place made him feel.

"I think the people of Macksville, the community, probably made it easier for him to just come back here and relax," he says. "People probably took away the cricket side of things a little bit, too – just saw him as the Phillip that grew up here.

"When he was around us, he kind of never really spoke to it, so it might have been his release to go, 'Well, I'm back home now – I don't have to worry; I can switch off for a few days'. And I think he just loved it.

"It seems to be all the kids who grew up here, they move away, and then they come back."

Lonergan has regaled his sons with stories of his fallen mate, so much so that Hugo, the eldest, took it upon himself to write a letter to Phillip and bury it, like a time capsule, under the sign at Phillip Hughes Oval. It seems a poignant way for a new generation to honour a man whose deeds will forever remain the preserve of legend – and YouTube clips – in their world.

The Oval is no more than a long golf drive from the Hughes' back fence. The Lonergans were only a few doors down on East Street, though Mitch now drives us into and then away from town, up a meandering country road surrounded by green hills and greener trees to the home of the Bowraville Tigers. A rugby league player of some repute, many of Mitch's favourite memories with Phillip are woven into that sport.

"He wasn't just a cricketer – he was a footballer as well," he says, pulling up his handbrake in the Tigers carpark. "And I suppose he could have went either way; he had the toughness to go either way.

"And this is where he used to carve up on the footy field."

The boys were a year younger than a tall, skinny and wonderfully gifted kid named Greg Inglis, who lived in the same neighbourhood and would go on to become a footballing legend. In a country town that fetes its sporting heroes, Inglis and Hughes are immortalised in a mural on an outside wall of the Macksville Hotel. Mitch remembers lining up alongside both of them for a season as very small kids.

"I think we were six," he says. "Bare feet – no footy boots – freezing cold in winter, playing at 7.30 in the morning. Every weekend we'd play, from sixes right through to sixteens."

Memories of those days became the basis of nostalgic daydreaming for Hughes when he moved into his 20s. He was in Sydney, Mitch was in Brisbane, and the roughly equal distance home to Macksville felt a bit farther than the opposite stretches of the Pacific Highway they both had to travel to be there.

"He'd often say to me, 'You'll be living back there, won't you mate?'" he says, calling out one of Phillip's habits – posing questions in order to seek reassurance – that always made him smile. "'Yeah, (we'll be) 36, yeah, you'll be living back there, and we'll play footy'.

That was his little dream. He'd say, 'Oh, we'll play reserve grade'. Funny as it is, I played this year … and a little bit of me thought: This is what Phil wanted.

"He'd go, 'Oh, I don't think I'll play cricket, though – do you reckon I should play cricket?'"

Mitch's eyes are fixed somewhere on the ground he graced with his mates as a kid. A hard wind is blowing and half a dozen kids reckon with it as they practice some goal kicking. He is silent for a moment, the rush of air the only sound around us. Then he turns on his heel, collects himself, and makes a welcome declaration: it is time for a beer at the Macksville Hotel.

* * *

Knock-off time in Macksville. Mitch is soon regaling us with his memories of his times shared with his best mate beside this very bar. He seems comfortable here. Familiar. Others join us. Chairs are scattered around small round tables. Coasters are slid under sweating beers. Not a half hour later, Megan and Curtis roll in from the farm.

These past couple of days have been both challenging and cathartic for Megan, who has carefully worked her way from guarded to garrulous in our company. She remains cautious with her emotions, which she will either tuck away or talk out, depending on her mood or the moment. Part of her views our presence – this documentary – as not just a chance to add an invaluable piece to her brother's legacy, but as a closing of a chapter. For years now, through the back half of her precious twenties, she has given herself no option but to soldier on with the farm, operating with tunnel vision throughout. The sacrifices have been made willingly, but they have been sacrifices nonetheless. And while she knows that work is ongoing, perhaps, with that part her brother's legacy established, she and Curtis will allow themselves to look at their future through a wider lens.

For now however, Megan decides such seriousness is best left for another day. Right now, her brother is being celebrated. The communal chat continues, the sold bulls are saluted, and soon enough, she springs to life, holding court and animatedly telling tales about Phillip that will stay within these walls.

From the adjacent table, Mitch sips at his beer, and shakes his head in bemusement as he follows along; Megan's wide-eyed expressions and busy hands are props in a delivery he has seen too many times in someone else to forget.

"Listening to her – watching her," he says, "is exactly like watching Phil."

The Stone & Woods flow liberally as the Macksville hospitality continues into the night. Many more yarns are spun – some for the first time, most for the thousandth – and the legend of Phillip Hughes grows by the hour, before the prospect of the looming dawn draws the evening to a close.

As Megan makes her exit – Curtis still by her side – she pauses outside, just for a beat, and glances over to her left. On the long brick wall, staring back at her, is the giant mural of her brother: the Macksville boy who ventured beyond his backyard to pursue a dream, but was home in spirit all along.

Cricket.com.au's documentary on the life of Phillip Hughes, The Boy from Macksville, will be shown on cricket.com.au’s digital platforms, as well as Channel 7, 7plus, Fox Sports and Kayo Sports from December 6, after day one of the second Test at Adelaide Oval