Hugh Lupton has a new CD called THE HOMING STONE, featuring him and the English Acoustic Collective (Chris Wood, Rob Harbron and John Dipper)
Hugh Lupton’s great-uncle was the writer Arthur Ransome who left the Lake District (you may know Ransome's childrens work - Swallows & Amazons) and travelled to Russia as a journalist in the turbulent days of the Russian revolution, carrying in his pocket a stone from Peel Island on Coniston Water. In Moscow Ransome played chess with Lenin and with Trotsky, became the only western journalist trusted by the Bolsheviks, and lost his heart to Evgenia, Trotsky’s secretary. In 1917, in a hired horse and cart, Ransome and Evgenia travelled incognito across Estonia, through the heartland of the White Russian counter-revolutionaries, towards the Baltic Sea. Ransome (with stone in pocket) was drawn homewards as powerfully as the salmon (which he loved to fish) are drawn to their spawning ground.
I was lucky enough to see Hugh Lupton performing Beowulf in a very small village hall in Derbyshire - an unforgettable experience. I had a chat with him about this performance, which was then in the embryonic stage.
He is also known to us followers of Chris Wood for penning some of his most memorable lyrics as well as, jointly with Chris, writing from many different angles, about the Enclosure Act & John Clare.
A subject which is never mentioned in the National Curriculum (whoops - rant alert).
I hope that some of this CD will feature on Late Junction some time soon, although with the preponderance of Fiona, I'm not too sure...
If you struggle through a fairly horrific order process, you can maybe order a copy -best to start at his website.
And a review is here
Although this picture was taken in the 50's I suspect it was a pretty accurate representation of his time there
And this poster is only a few years after the revolution...'Down with the Drunks'
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