During July I was lucky enough to spend 10 days with the Grange Park Opera meeting opera goers and talking to them about love and sharing our love stories together.  This couple and their daughter spent a few minutes sharing their story after the opera had finished and the darkness had gathered all around. Thank you x 

"I WORSHIP THE GROUND SHE WALKS ON"

I met her at Uni, up at Keel.  Our accommodation is off campus, so we all have to take the bus in.  And on the first day we were all waiting for the bus and we thought, 'this is interesting, there are some nice ladies here'. me and my two flat mates in a brilliant manly move picked which ones we want. "I'll take the ginger."

AND THEY SAY LOVE IS DEAD

"Because she threw herself at me so much and because she seemed to want me so much.   I somehow felt,  I'd never had a woman that wanted, that seemed to want me so much. I thought, 'God she must be right, you know this must be ok, because to actually want someone so badly.  It's actually quite good to be wanted by someone finally.  And we stayed together for 14 years.  Meanwhile my wife became progressively ill.  She became very very ill.  She was in a clinic for quite a few months de-toxing.  She was diagnosed with bi-polar.  It was awful.  And when that happened I thought 'God I really need to stay with this other woman because it's the only seemingly normal relationship I seem to be having with anyone.  And so it lasted 14 years -  Islington - 2013

SHE MUST BE RIGHT - THIS MUST BE OK

"IT WAS HIS SMELL"

"IT WAS 1950 AND WE CANVASSED TOGETHER"

He squeezed my side and thought there was something about a sparkle in a touch there.  We ended up at the grand old age of 24 playing spin the bottle and very luckily the bottle landed on him.  That first kiss was so electric, there was something in it.  Wow.  And it stopped the game.  Whenever we're together it's just a wholeness and I couldn't be anywhere else but with him.

I COULDN'T BE ANYWHERE ELSE

"HE NEEDED ME AND I NEEDED HIM"

"Some people find it very easy, they meet someone at 16 or 17, a lot of my friends have done that.  I took so long, I just took so long, I don't know why.  I was somebody who had a quick love when I was at university. And then we only parted because of circumstance.  We didn't fall out. I thought i've got the rest of my life, you think life's just beginning and these things are going to happen time and time again, but at some level I never met anyone i've connected with so much, which is kind of sad but not sad.  And then the other day, about 2 or 3 weeks ago, I saw him again."

I FEEL LIKE I'VE COME HOME

"I'm not sure i'm able to talk about love or share my experience of love.  I think because my parents relationship and my experiences of that it makes trust hard.  I'm not saying I would never have a relationship.  Part of what happened to my mum was that she had mental health problems and perhaps there's a fear that that could happen to me.  It's quite layered I think.  In some ways i'm very guarded and I don't let that go very easily, if at all."

Queens College - Birmingham.  October 2014

• Brought to you with the love of the Kickstarter community •


EXPERIENCES MAKE TRUST HARD

"She drove JCB's, tractors, everything.  Wonderful tango dancer.  Wonderful tango, ahhhhhhhhhhh.  I just let her go her own way, because she was her own person.  There was no way you could tell Mamie what to do, no way.  I just let her go. She'd go into a pub and she'd just get on the mic and start singing, start singing.  She's just wonderful and people loved her, people loved her. I think I miss ...you didn't know what was coming next "      

An English Love Story in Ashington, Northumberland - 2014

• Brought to you with the love of the Kickstarter community •


YOU DIDN'T KNOW WHAT WAS COMING NEXT

"It was all the other people who made a decision to move in that way that light is stronger than darkness.  People fight for good on an everyday level and for love, on an everyday level of their lives and will never be noticed in a book, will never be recognised. Acts of love in a difficult world.  There's a quote I really like from Desmond Tutu in the African Prayer Book, he said 'goodness is stronger than evil, love is stronger than hate, light is stronger than darkness and life is stronger than death'.  That's all really." 
Brighton - 2015

LOVE IS STRONGER THAN HATE

A Love Story from Mumbai - The tragedy of one life's love story irrevocably transformed in the terrorist attacks of November 2008, in its place a new love story is born.  LISTEN  •  CONNECT  •  SHARE 

"I was shattered, life as I knew it was over.  It was a numb state of shock.  What remained still alive, was love...Then these messages came in from all over the world, heartfelt messages of love. I'll never know who they are, so called strangers felt moved to write a note to me sharing what they felt."  -  

WHAT REMAINED STILL ALIVE WAS LOVE

"No one can live here without love. Everybody needs it.

If you see someone from a different place and if you meet them, you should treat them nice, you should give them respect.  We should treat each other the same.  We're not different, we're the same people."  

NO ONE CAN LIVE HERE WITHOUT LOVE

I never knew I was this strong.  I never knew I was this brave. Christopher Robin says to Winnie the Pooh "you're braver than you think, stronger than you seem."  I've loved Kathy, i've loved Phil, I love someone now.  And I love myself.  We all love but i'm not sure if there are many who can love themselves.  And the journey is so hard, you know life is sometimes not for the faint of heart, but with these incredibly difficult moments, and they don't last forever difficult, come moments of sublime joy.

Matthew Nicolas Hopwood's Album

I NEVER KNEW I WAS THIS BRAVE

Excerpts from powerful love stories shared at the Scottish International Storytelling Festival. A Love Story from the South Downs. 

For the whole story you can visit here:

EXCERPT: A LOVE STORY FROM THE SOUTH DOWNS

Excerpts from powerful love stories shared at the Scottish International Storytelling Festival. Another Love Story from the Grange. 

For the whole story you can visit here:

EXCERPT: ANOTHER LOVE STORY FROM THE GRANGE

"I think i've reached a point where a really good friendship is more important.  I do get depressed, especially when it's coming up to wintertime now.  She comes round and sorts me out and when she's in a bad way i'll come round and i'll do the washing up and tidy up, or do the garden, i'll let her have someone to talk to, and it's important to have someone in your life that you can be completely at ease with.  I think that is true love, in many respects."

LOVE STORIES TO AND FROM LUDLOW

"I think love might be every day choosing someone else, or choosing someone to be the main thing about that day. That's why it's difficult when you're single because you feel no one is choosing you.  There are days when I wake up and I know that I am loved.  On the days when I don't feel that, then choosing myself to love."

LOVE IS NOT ENOUGH

We have one son who's a lovely boy.  Now I have a tourist visa, which has allowed me just to stay here, but not allowed me to do any work, but i'm just staying here and helping my wife to look after our son when she goes to work. Maybe in the future i'm hopeful i'll get the work permit visa, which will allow me to do some work.  I like it here but sometimes I miss life in Tanzania, but in a good way.

I HAVE A TOURIST VISA AND A SON

And of course it's fine to not want to be something, of course it's fine to not know how to do something, it's natural, I really believe that.  I'm just trying to be honest with myself.  But what I haven't been able to do is be honest with others.  I've not been able to stand up and say 'I'm not her husband', or, 'I'm not her boyfriend', and 'I'm not in love with her' and 'I'm not able to commit to this' and 'I'm not able to cope with this'.  To say that out loud is something that is very very difficult.

IT'S THE FIRST FOREVER THING

"I’ve never said to my mum ‘I love you’ and my mum has never said it to me. I know she loves me but I’ve never heard those words. My mum’s eighty-three now so, you know, I don’t know how much longer I’ll have her. I mean, every time I leave her I give her a big cuddle but I can’t say those words. What if my mum passes and I’ve never said it? I know, if I don’t tell my mum I love her, I’ll regret it."

I NEVER SAID I LOVE YOU

"I’ve always known that I’ve had mental health issues. And I was frightened of getting close to people because I didn’t want to be a burden.   I felt I was weak and I was needy and I needed pity.  I can remember being terrified, absolutely terrified, of them turning round and saying ‘no, I don’t want to be your friend.’ But I have such a lovely network of people, and I love the bones of them.  And I don’t think any of us have met and I think that’s incredibly powerful.  It’s lovely that you can have such a strength of feeling towards somebody you haven’t actually met."

I LOVE THE BONES OF THEM

A Love Story from Gal Gael. "You can make mistakes, you're not going to be cast out, so there's a sense of acceptance.  This is a community of solidarity, there's something very powerful in that.  That's what our time calls for, nothing short of love."

NOTHING SHORT OF LOVE

I didn't feel for a long time that I was worthy of loving myself.  And it's not that long ago that I came to the realisation that 'yeah, I'm worth loving'.

I'M WORTH LOVING

"I've never ever recovered from his death.  And I never will. Someone said to me 'you've got to let him go'.  I said 'I can't'.  I once asked him a question 'can you love somebody too much?' I think you can."

CAN YOU LOVE SOMEBODY TOO MUCH?

"Well, my mum had just had my brother. Within six weeks she was pregnant with me. And she was pregnant with me by someone else. So I’m sure she felt ashamed by the fact that, when she went back for her six-week check-up for her first baby, she was pregnant again. And so she didn’t tell anyone. And she kept it a secret...So she kept me a secret and I knew that being in secret I had to be still. You can hear faster in water than you can through the air, and I believe babies can hear when people speak. And, usually, when people see women pregnant, they ask about them. You know, they’re happy. You know, they ask, ‘Oh you’re having a baby, what are you having?’ Well, I never heard those words –
I was kept a secret, and so I stayed still."

STILL BEING STILL • Stories of Mother

"I kind of put myself in my mother’s shoes and thought what would it be like to have this baby and just be with that baby all the time, carry this baby for these eighteen years. And then this baby just goes and won’t return calls. I mean, ‘What the fuck?’ So I really felt that pain of hers and I felt how strong she was not to bother me. She just had to sit with it. She knew I was going through something huge – a transformation of finding myself – and she never intervened. She just stayed where she was. I could feel how much effort that took."

LETTING ME GO - Part 1 - Stories of Mother

"I could feel there was my mother and there was her mother and so much history, so much history. All these mothers in line, one after another, passing down all of this history to me and to us through this cord, this umbilical cord, it’s just all passed down. And, eventually, this line reached down to the earth and I could feel this ultimate mother earth and how much grief that mother earth held for her children, for us. It was the same kind of grief that my mum held for me and for her mother."

LETTING ME GO - Part 2 - Stories of Mother

"The love that you feel when you have a child is the most amazing love  -it’s not like anything else that you ever experience, or that I will ever experience. Even though I love my husband, of course, it’s totally different. They come from you, you made them, they’re part of you. Everything from Jason is familiar – I just knew it. And the love that I feel for him: that’s probably one of the scariest loves that I’ve got because it is so deep and it’s different from the love I can put to one side."

THEY COME FROM YOU - Stories of Mother

Thrilled to share this beautiful poem from Roseanne Watt.  Written in both Shaetlan and English this was part of a conversation between us as we explored her award winning poetry collection 'Moder Dy' and my book 'Mother' in preparation for Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019.

THE SLOCKIT LIGHT by Roseanne Watt - read by Roseanne & Matt Hopwood

A Human Love Story - a compelling audio collection of love stories gathered from around the world.  Stories of connection, of identity, of belonging.

These stories express our shared human endeavour to love and connect in every continent on this beautiful earth. Our love stories are global tales from our worldly family. 

A Human Love Story takes me walking as a pilgrim, seeking hospitality where it is offered, meeting people where they are; on the path, in the street, around the corner, in prison, in church, on the towpath.  We share our love stories together, recording these emotive and powerful human experiences and bringing them to the public all around the world through this online audio archive.

This project began in 2012 as An English Love Story but has now grown and expanded to A Human Love Story. The walking journeys are set to reach out into Europe and beyond: beyond borders and divides.  The work will delve deeper into the lives of the outsiders, the asylum seekers, the refugees, those in prison and on the outskirts of our societies. We will be sharing loving stories that explore what we have in common, until we recognise ourselves in the stranger, so we can connect and be compassionate.  So we become less strange to one another:  Until We All Have Faces.   

A Human Love Story is all about sharing; our lives, our experiences, our humanity.  I believe in facilitating encounters where people can connect deeply, feel safe, tell their story, be heard, and discuss matters of the heart, wherever and in whatever way that conversation may find its form.  Through these sharings we help to nurture 'true community', connecting people deeply with their emotional and spiritual self, with other people and with the place they live in.  The sharing of these stories together becomes an act of connection, something that can transform and continue the world. A act of re-membering that allows us to re-vision the world and begin the process of social reclamation.

An essential tool of the project is the journeying; by foot, as a pilgrim. Since 2012 I have walked over 1000 miles. I walk, carrying only a simple bag and stick. I explore the idea of hospitality, the stranger, the guest. I present individuals and communities with the opportunity to extend hospitality in a variety of ways.  How do we respond to the stranger in our community, at our front door?  What does that tell us about our community and the way in which we communally express love? What is the importance of a smile? An open hand? Through walking I enter a place stripped of my possessions and status, open to an open encounter, gently arriving, quietly leaving, unencumbered and free to meet people where they are.

Popular tracks by A Human Love Story