Born 70 years ago,  after university Hugh Ashton hung around Cambridge tech businesses for several years – shared a photocopier with Sir Clive Sinclair’s company at one place, and later on worked with a lady who’d been his PA.

He played in various rock bands – one of the most successful in terms of exposure was called Ersatz:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA4upslbjE0

And another one he produced was called Dogma Cats

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PURV4lZmyuE

"We were played on the radio by John Peel of Wonderful Radio One," said Hugh  "and he invited himself round for a cup of tea when he was in Cambridge one day looking for “trousers for the larger man”.

After that I played in various bands, including one with Boo Hewerdine (our record label was the first to record him – in my front room), and the wonderfully named Doctor Skull and the Crossbones."

(38MB WAV of Boo, 2 Dogma Cats and Hugh Ashton  playing as Wallpaper Wallpaper in a studio session
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NiUKmJadg7Vz6ZGL-HHSmmVapBwPGsrg/view?usp=sharing )

"I left the UK for Japan in 1988 to work for a company producing manuals for Yamaha – the story of how that came to pass is long and complex" said Hugh.  

"My 2-year contract with this company lasted for 6 years, after which I went freelance in Japan, helping to set up the technical side of the first commercial Internet Service Provider in Japan, writing magazine articles, speeches (including speeches for two one-time Prime Ministers), and advertorials for an international business magazine.

At the same time, I was writing – a small independent California press took some stories of Japanese life (Tales of Old Japanese) and a whole slew of Sherlock Holmes pastiches – generally reckoned to be some of the best on the market – and before the flood of Holmes pastiches hit the shelves. In this time, I also wrote a couple of alternative history novels (Beneath Gray Skies and Red Wheels Turning), thrillers (At the Sharpe End, Balance of Powers, Leo’s Luck), children’s books (the Sherlock Ferret series). I think that’s the lot.

Along the way I met and married Yoshiko Nishio, with whom I returned to the UK in 2016. My mother by that time was living alone in Stafford, and my sister in Burton-on-Trent, so we picked Lichfield as being geographically between them and nicer than either.

Soon after arriving back in the UK, the leading light of the Californian press died, and I was forced to negotiate to recover publishing rights to my work. I added to my work with a series of Mapp & Lucia novellas, a few more Sherlockian offerings, and other work.

Probably my best (in my opinion) work has been On the Other Side of the Sky – an 18th-century scientific fantasy – for want of a better description.

Recently, my political life as a City and District Councillor, along with other public and civic matters, has meant that I have less time for writing than I would like, but I have been helping others get published. Ian Henery has been very good about introducing poets, including himself, and I have worked with local poets such as Saida Chowdhury and Sundari Maheswaran, as well as Ian Henery himself.  

I’ve also come through a medical crisis – I was diagnosed with prostate cancer – now happily over and I am declared cancer-free. Part of the treatment included hormone therapy, which pushed me through the menopause, and has given me new views on life, love and relationships, and opened up a part of me that had been hidden for too long.

Part of this was expressed in a flood of highly personal and emotional poetry, that may find an audience, but not under my own name. There may or may not also be a novel which fits into the book club/upmarket categories – depending on whether the edited MS finds a buyer. It’s not a roman à clef, but some people might choose to recognise themselves in it, so again, a pen name.

I’ve also recorded and produced some music, put out by the revived record label that we started way back then. Some has been played on national radio. Look for the album Ballet with Explosions. I like the track I titled Elephant pursued by a Swarm of Flies."

Hugh Ashton will be interviewed on The Ian Henery Show on Black Country Xtra

Sunday 26th April 4pm

Monday 27th April 6pm 

Photo credit Jay Lewis