HUGH LUPTON, STORYTELLER,

CHRIS WOOD, MUSICIAN


Since the earliest times there has been a strong, almost a magical connection between people and horses. We can see it in paleolithic cave-paintings of wild horses, we can see it in the reverence paid to the horse in Celtic culture, just as we can see it in old black and white footage of farm labourers working their ploughs with teams of shires. It is a relationship that has continued through history, and it is only over the last seventy years (or so) that the connection has been severed for most of us by the supplanting of the horse by the internal combustion engine. But we feel it instinctively still; when we are in the presence of horses an old memory is wakened in us. This programme of words and music explores and celebrates the ancient relationship between man and horse. It also explores what we have lost by being out of touch with ‘horse presence’. Using story, poetry, song and specially composed music it evokes the companionship and the mystery, the sense of otherness that horses conjure in us. At the heart of the programme is the narrative poem ‘The Horses’, a story that begins in Eastern England a hundred years ago. It follows the life of Jenny Wing, a horseman’s daughter. The slow disappearance of the horses from the landscape mirrors the aspirations and disappointments of her lifetime, a lifetime that almost spans the twentieth century. The programme also includes poetry, and humorous, moving stories from the Celtic and Navajo traditions. The music, original and traditional, played and sung by Chris Wood, underscores and weaves in and out of the spoken narratives.