Are you angry yet?

 His coffers sound

With hollow poverty and emptiness.

Shakespeare, Henry V

- British Gas made a profit of £1.3bn between January & June 

- BP announced profits of £6.95 billion between April and June alone

- Shell has profited by £9.4bn in a year

- John Pettigrew, boss of National Grid received £6.5m bonus on top of his salary

- Chris O’Shea, chief executive of British Gas owner Centrica was paid almost £2m last year in salary and benefits

- Centrica's non-executive directors were paid almost £1m

- Scottish Power's CEO Keith Anderson is on £1.15m. 

- E.On boss Michael Lewis is on £1m

- EDF's Simone Rossi is also on £1m and their top execs enjoyed a share of £4.65m

- Peter Simpson of Anglian Water earned a £1.3m pay package

- Welsh Water bosses received bonuses of over £930,000 

- Severn Trent bosses received bonuses of £5.56m

- Thames Water's Sarah Bentley, received a £727,000 bonus on top of her £2m annual salary.

MEANWHILE - People are given fines by these same energy/water companies because they cannot afford to pay their bills in. All this and energy prices are set to rise up to 75% in October..

MY DISABLED SON

Rich list v poor list

 

My disabled son is on Personal Independence Payment (PIP) which replaced the Disability Living Allowance . He receives £790 per month. He also receives Universal Tax Credit at £935 per month. Total income = £1,725 per month.

His outgoings per month. Rent £875, energy £158, food £200, council tax £40, water £19, teI/internet/mobile £80. Total outgoings = £1,372 per month

This leaves him with £353 per month for miscellaneous expenses ( a recent example are new glasses he needed, the occasional night out and (cheaper option) nights in!

How the hell do disabled people 'survive', forget the notion of ‘live’. My son is lucky because both myself and his mother give him a small monthly ‘allowance’ and make sure he receives money, not presents, for birthdays and Christmas/New Year.

According to The Sunday Times Rich List there were 15 billionaires in the UK in 1990 and this had increased to 177 by 2022.

Rich List

WAR CHILD - The Play

SIMPLE WRITINGS is the title of a play I wrote and which was first staged in London in 1989. The director was Michael Walling, today's artistic director at Border Crossings. Two years later Bill Leeson and I, as co-founders of War Child, with Michael as director, decided to re-stage it and changed its title from SIMPLE WRITINGS to WAR CHILD. We intended to raise money for the children of the war then raging throughout the former Yugoslavia. It was adapted from the German novel, 'The Adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus' by Johann Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen and set during the German 30 Years War (1618 - 1648). It is about the wisdom of youth surviving brutality. It was not performed, but we decided to keep the title for the charity that went on to promote the wisdom, joy and enthusiasm of youth through music. Nearly 40 years after its first performance I am hoping to re-stage the play since its message remains sadly relevant. The revised play is dedicated to the two war children who not only survived a brutal war, but became my family. They are Oha and Teo. They both started their own families, but sadly wars continue with many more Simplicius' shaming us all with their humanity and wisdom.

SIMPLE WRITINGS (WAR CHILD)

adapted from The Adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus by Johann Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen in 1686 and set during the German 30 Years War (1618 - 1648)

David Wilson’s dramatisation, originally made for television, comes to the stage with a cast of 10 who give themselves ably and ebulliently to the task of peopling Grimmelshausen’s world: it is witty, bawdy, and as profound as anyone cares to consider it. Financial Times

David Wilson unfurls a sprawling, vibrant, bustling canvas of seventeenth-century German peasant life in the Thirty Years war … the play at times works like a painting by Breughel, in its juxtaposition of the ingeniously fanciful and the gruesomely horrific  Time Out

Simple Writings brings to often uproarious life a 17^th century German novel with overtones of Fielding and Rabelais, but with its own contemplative force besides. Ham & High

Simple Writings was filmed by German Television (ZDF) for a short TV documentary on West German national TV.

If you want to read the whole play I will send you the pdf of full text. Contact me at david@davidwilson.org.uk

David Hencke: RIP

 

We have lost one of the last 'investigative' journalists

I was reading the ByLineTimes article about Jason Arday and read that David Hencke died on 26 June 2026. I am in shock. 

I was delighted to see him hm when he came to the launch of ‘My World Music’ and we promised to keep in touch.  David was my lifesaver when I was sacked from War Child after blowing the whistle on corruption in the charity. He was one of The Guardian’s leading investigative journalists and after Dorothy Byrne of Channel 4 TV informed him of my case he undertook a thorough and detailed exposure. 

On its publication in 2001 Jon Snow undertok his brilliant Channel 4 TV news ‘take down’ of Rosie Boycott, then Chair of the War Child trustees. Thanks to David, Dorothy and Jon, I managed to put my life back on the rails. 

But David was at the centre of this and that is why I am reeling from the news of his death. After leaving The Guardian David wrote for ByLineTimes and am sure he would want us all to read their powerful piece about Professor Arday.

my letters from Tom Stoppard

It’s over 25 years since I left Mostar and my role as director of the Pavarotti Music Centre. I had to leave, not because I had completed my tenure there, but because I was sacked from War Child for exposing corruption.

All the charity’s patrons resigned in my support, including Pavarotti, David Bowie, Brent Hansen and Juliet Stevenson. Two of the patrons who were most active in solidarity with me were Tom Stoppard and Brian Eno. As well as the resigning patrons there was David Hencke at The Guardian, Jon Snow at Channel 4, Brian’s partner, Anthea Norman-Taylor, Dorothy Byrne, Jane Glitre, Steve Day, Hiroshi Kato, Liz & Peter Huhne, Berry Ritchie, Johnny Carmichael and others giving me the support I needed to carry on with my life. That is just in the UK. In Bosnia Herzegovina the list is much longer.

I was recently invited to celebrate Tom’s life, but couldn’t go for health reasons. I was informed that the Harry Ransom Library in Texas were hosting the playwright’s archive and I offered to send them the many letters and notes I had received from Tom over those difficult years. In return I was told by his family that the Library would make a donation to a music-based charity and I suggested it be the Mostar Rock School. That was agreed.

I may have left Mostar many years ago, but the MORS survives, thrives and continues to carry on with the spirit of what we started so long ago - the overriding principle being to unite all communities with music.

Tom – I have parted with your letters, but was careful to copy them so they remain with me as does my respect for you