Hugh Philpott

Writer and former British diplomat

Author of memoir and cultural writing shaped by music, diplomacy, and place

Author of The Singing Ambassador – A Tajik Story

I write about my life as a British diplomat through the lens of my love of music, people, and the colourful texture of everyday life. My work explores how song, culture, and human connection often matter as much as politics

Travel with me from the chalk of the South Downs to the granite of the Roof of the World — from the Sussex coast to Central Asia and beyond.

The Singing Ambassador – A Tajik Story is a lived account of my time as the United Kingdom’s ambassador to Tajikistan, where music, listening, and cultural encounter became essential tools of diplomacy.

‘Listen to the reed (flute), how it tells a tale,
complaining of separations:—
Saying, ‘Ever since I was parted from the reed-bed,
my lament hath caused man and woman to moan.’

(Taken from the opening of the Masnavi by Jalāl ad-Dīn Rūmī Translation by R.A. Nicholson, Book I, lines 1–4, Cambridge University Press, 1926)