HOW AMERICAN AUTHOR CLIFF HUDDER’S TRIP TO HUDDER-SFIELD TO FIND HIS ROOTS INSPIRED A QUIRKY NOVEL

By Martin Shaw. Published June 21, 2025 in the Huddersfield Hub

A college professor from Texas, USA was always curious about the origins of his surname--Hudder--and it was an itch he had to scratch.

Cliff Hudder scoured the world for his ancestry and found the nearest match to be lil ol' Hudder-sfield, UK.

Cliff eventually made the near 5,000 mile pilgrimage to Huddersfield in 2017 hoping to find the land of his fathers, or, indeed, his mothers.

Sadly he could find no evidence of family roots but what he did discover was a love of Huddersfield and its people.

And that trip inspired a novel based on his transatlantic odyssey to Yorkshire and a journey into himself.

The novel Sallowsfield follows Texas college professor Wyatt Sallow as he travels to a "down-at-its-heels" market town in the North of England to "trace an ancestry it turns out he does not have.

For Cliff--currently a professor of English at Lone Star College-Montgomery in Conroe, Texas--Sallowsfield is his third book, published in November last year.

He returned to Huddersfield in May and performed a reading of his book at Huddersfield Literature Festival.

Cliff said, "I have been told by family members my entire life about a special town in West Yorkshire that is the source of our family history, heritage and ancestry.

"'Go there and you will be treated like a king,' my half-sister Judi insisted. And if there's on thing egalitarian Americans desire it's to be treated like royalty!

"A good friend told me I should stop talking about this magical town and that I should take action. 'You're a writer,' she insisted. 'Go there and write about what happens when you do.'

"In 2017 I was lucky enough to spend 11 days in Huddersfield and the surrounding region. I visited the University of Huddersfield, the wonderful genealogy department of the Kirklees library, and met many people jost on the street or in pubs and restaurants.

"All had the same reaction about the surname 'Hudder' which was: 'That's not a name.'

"It soon became apparent that my relatives had been living a fable and there was no discernable connection between the town and my family.

"Later research indicated there are very few people named 'Hudder' anywhere in the world. Aside from my immediate family I have still never met anyone named 'Hudder' in person.

"I was not disappointed with my visit, however. As a writer, the story of a character who goes looking for his ancestry but finds he doesn't have one intrigued me, perhaps more than a run-of-the-mill story of reunion with long lost relatives would have.

"I fictionalized my trip and used it as the framework for a novel that also incorporates stories and fragments I'd been collecting and obsessing over for a while, sometimes decades.

"The book is held together by the visit to a Yorkshire town of Wyatt W. Sallow, MBA--poet, business ethics professor, and coach of the 8th ranked collegiate chess team in East Texas--who can't uncover his family history but does begin to work through his own personal past, while encountering along the way many town inhabitants dealing with similar issues.

"I worked on the story of this fictionalized 'hometown' and its inhabitants for about seven years and last November Sallowsfield was published by the Texas Review Press, the University Press of Sam Houston State University.

"I like the way the publisher's catalogue describes the finished product: 'Thought-provoking yet dryly humorous, Sallowsfield weaves diverse elements into a story both light-hearted and philosophical, exploring along the way universal human touchstones of obsession, ruined love and the inexplicable mysteries that shape our lives.'"

The book has received much critical acclaim back in the States and that 2017 trip has left Cliff with a love of Hudder-sfield.

"Aside from inspiring a novel, I also wasn't disappointed in my 2017 trip because I enjoyed my time in Huddersfield so much," said Cliff.

"I found the architecture striking, the landscape green, rolling and gorgeous (the fact I come from a sub-tropical swamp in East Texas could have something to do with my admiration for the local terrain).

"Also, the town itself is an almost perfect size for easy access, and the people are extremely friendly.

"In addition o all of this, when in Huddersfield, everywhere I look I see my name!"

Cliff was also impressed with the two-week Huddersfield Literature Festival which he described as "bigger than anything of its kind in Texas."

He added: "Huddersfield should be very proud of its literary festival.

Sallowsfield is available on Amazon and Amazon UK.