WHEN I first started at The Chronicle quite a long time ago I found myself somehow manoeuvred onto what was then called The Borough Theatre Management Committee.

Chaired at the time by unforgettable Les Townsend, its members included Abergavenny legends like the late Bernard Zavishlock, Adoree Flower, Ken Williams, Cllr Alan Breeze and of course the redoubtable Miss Sylvia Fencott.

Also on the committee was a representative of Abergavenny Moose, a now defunct group which regularly organised concerts at the theatre. Under normal circumstances their representative changed each year, but the one arrived who didn’t leave for more than three decades.

He was of course Mel Hughes who became as much of a fixture at the theatre as its iconic cherubs.

No performance was complete without Mel guiding audience members to their seats, ferrying them up in the less than reliable lift or gently pointing them in the direction of the coffee and sweet counter, which was the domain of his equally theatrically devoted wife Vera.

They, and the core of dedicated volunteers, under the watchful eye of the housemate, who served as front of house manager for an equally long time, welcomed hundreds of thousands of people to the Borough Theatre and did their level best to ensure they had a memorable visit - sometimes despite the less than memorable shows!

As a team they prided themselves on their impeccably high standards and quietly boasted how they could evacuate a packed theatre in three minutes in the unlikely event of a fire - memorably relocating an entire audience to Red Square to watch the final scene of an AAODS production of Orpheus in the Underworld, while fire crews poured into the theatre behind them.

I remember one evening, sitting in my familiar seat - K1- when I caught the eye of a lady in the middle of the row in front.

“Can you send the steward over,” she mouthed.

Fearing there was something wrong, I nudged Mel who edged his way along the row.

“”Here you are,” she said pushing a boiled sweet into his hand.

“I know he loves a sweet so I always bring his favourites,” she explained as he returned to his post.

Impeccably attired in his dinner jacket and glistening white shirt Mel barely missed a performance, sometime struggling through nights when lesser men would have been home in bed with a hot water bottle.

Both he and Vera took the housemate’s offer of the occasional night off as an affront, replying that if he was there - they would be there.

It was of course not only the theatre which benefitted from their dedication over the years - countless other organisations in Abergavenny have cause to be grateful to the couple - as does the nation as on D-Day last year Mel took pride of place in the celebrations as one of the town’s oldest WWII veterans - and one who has always been seen paying tribute to his fallen friends at the War Memorial on November 11.

Next Tuesday Mel will celebrate his 100th birthday with family and friends. It’s not only they who wish him a very Happy Birthday - best wishes come from the whole town. Happy birthday Mel!