Raymond Hugh

“Dad’s just weird” an interview with author Raymond Hugh

 

Wendover News September 2024

Rory Lavery

Raymond HughRaymond Hugh is an author from Wendover, whose latest book, Blooded Minds, is due for release in November of this year. The writers work expand a range of genres: beginning with hiking guides in the 1990s, Hugh has gone on to write crime fiction and fantasy horror set in the Chilterns. I sat down with the author to discuss the sources of his inspiration, what advice he has for aspiring writers and blurring the line between fact and fiction in his work.
 
I met Hugh at a local café, dressed for the weather in a white tea and shorts and is carrying an addition of his latest book. I began by asking the author where he gets his inspiration; he laughs as if it’s to suggest a certain familiarity with the question, and tells me his daughter is so fed up with people asking that she’s resorted to saying “Dad‘s just weird”.
 
The author himself, fortunately, seemed more than willing to recapitulate his sources, and did so with a freshness of enthusiasm and excitement that might benefit a younger writer: “Well I always question things, if I see a street name that’s unusual, I want to find out more. I’ve always had a curious mind. When I go hiking, I always use an OS map. I hate to use anything else because you’ve got all the names on the map – you feel like you’re a detective hunting for clues.” Hugh also cited frequent use of Dictaphone to record any ideas that come to him whilst he’s out: “quite often it comes to me all of a sudden when I’m talking to my Dictaphone; I go back home and then I’m ready to write.”
 
“Our local library is running short of short story competition” I tell him. “What advice do you have for our contestants?” Hugh suggested four pillars for success: write for pleasure, research diligently, keep a discipline and be resilient. “Don’t try and write to win the competition,” he says, “Write for your own pleasure and enjoy it. Just put down what’s coming from inside you”. As we get talking it also becomes apparent that Hugh is a rigorous researcher. “Detail is retail” he tells me, and sites conversations he’s had with medical professionals, military servicemen and women and others who have crossed his path in order to inform his works accuracy. and while he cited many instances of his work receiving a warm reception with a look that hinted at more than a few bouts of experience, he said you need to be prepared for criticism: “I won’t pretend that every review is good.”
 
Hughes most recent work centres on a phenomenon called The Red Market a little known circle of organised crime in which bodies are illegally harvested for organs. it makes for gripping and graphic reading and I asked Hugh to explain his motivation for blurring the line between fact and fiction: “I’m hoping people start talking about the red market. It needs to be talked about. And I’ve used something that actually happens, which isn’t fantasy you know, or imagination.”
 
 Hugh leaned over slightly and spoke with an urgency and expertise that suggested deep research: “it’s something that governments sweep under the carpet. In fact the law has tightened in this country six months ago to try and stop it from happening, and it completely went under the radar of all the national media. I’ve come across it personally too he added, “I had a reader who was a victim of the Read market. She went to Turkey for a cosmetic operation, came back, fell ill, and found she’s had one of her kidneys removed. “Don’t read these books if you’re easily shocked”  reads the caption to the advertisement.
 
As we draw our conversation to a close, I ask Hugh how he’ll spend the rest of his afternoon in the good weather: “I’m going to lie down on the sofa with my Dictaphone,” he tells me. Writing it seems is a full-time occupation.

The Darkening of Aldbury

 

Wendover News May 2021

In this new book by Raymond Hugh, all the action revolves around the village of Aldbury and the Ashridge Estate along with Wendover and the countryside around Beacon and Pulpit Hill towards Princes Risborough.

The author is a keen conservationist and there is an underlying conservation theme running throughout the story. The author hopes readers of the book who may not all be that interested in conservation will by reading the book be converted and become involved in the cause. He has left a personal message in the book and wants eventually to form a charity restoring flower meadows, old orchards and protected ponds to encourage pond life, so much of which has been decimated in recent years. In the meantime for every book sold in the first year 50 pence will be donated to a local conservation charity. The publisher has already committed for the first three months to donate to the Chiltern Society.

The author says: “We are hoping to offer the book in all sorts of local shops – not just in book shops – and it will also be available to purchase online. If anybody has trouble finding a copy of the book please contact us directly either by telephoning 01202 133790 or emailing morningmistpublications@gmail.com.”

The jacket summary says:
A young French girl moves to a quiet village with her parents in the Chiltern Hills. A village over which hangs a cloud that refuses to move. From day one strange things start to happen. As village life starts to resemble Hell the little French girl finds herself drawn into a battle with an invisible enemy. As the story draws to a nail-biting climax the final outcome could very well depend on you!