LEFT FIELD: Read my memoir for free

"David Wilson has lived a life and a half. I was proud to play a minor role in War Child, an organisation in which David was inspirational. The broken world needed people like David then; it still does and it always will" -- Sir Tom Stoppard

"David Wilson is an adventurer and a free-thinker who ... did something truly useful with his life. His stubborn and yet self-effacing commitment to his ideals carried him through many daunting situations, and his sense of humour kept him able to see the funny side"-- Brian Eno

"What a life this man has led" -- Dorothy Byrne, former head of Channel 4 TV News

"David Wilson is a national treasure"-- Mandla Langa, Winner of 2009 Commonwealth Prize

"This is the work of a determined guy who is prepared to expose fraud and injustice wherever he finds it "-- David Hencke. Former Guardian investigative journalist

 "One of the key people of my life has finished his book. There is a chapter that describes the times we spent together. What good times we had while giving spirit to the Pavarotti Music Centre. This was after my orphanage times and steered me to who I am and what I do today. Thank you David" -- Orhan (Oha) Maslo, Director Mostar Rock School

"Your relationship with your elderly father is described in such beautiful style that it would not be out of place from a literary novel by an established and seasoned author" - -Ed Victor Literary Agency

"Left Field is fantastic. So much I don’t know about someone I know well… and so much vivid colour around the bits I did know well. The Mostar sections are incredible - and salutary"-- Michael Walling, Artistic Director, Border Crossings

LEFT FIELD CAN NOW BE READ 

HERE

but start with 

BRIAN ENO INTERVIEW

FILM INTRO

MUSICAL SUMMARY

OUR WORLD RIVERS

"The river has great wisdom and whispers its secrets to the hearts of men.”

Mark Twain

My third memory book will be ready for publication later this year. It completes a trilogy. ‘My Word Café’ was about food, ‘My World Music’ about music and this one, ‘Our World Rivers’, about waterways. The title was to have been "My World Rivers', but I invited friends to contribute their watery memories, .These wonderful 40+ river memories cannot pass unacknowledged and this has resulted in the change of title. They range from childhood adventures on English, Welsh and Scottish rivers, to The Mekong in war-time Vietnam, the horrific drowning of prisoners into the Rio de la Plata, the crocodile-infested Daintree in Australia, the not-quite blue Danube, eating catfish on the banks of the Rio Grande in New Mexico and more than few about the Neretva in Bosnia Herzegovina. Read one example below.

The book  will be designed by Roelof Bakker with this photo of the River Stour by Steve Day on the front cover and Dawn Neely-Randall's photo of the River Neretva as the back cover .

 If you wish to contribute a river memory please send it to me by the end of October. The maximum number of words is 400/500. To david@davidwilson.org.uk

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Left Field was was dedicated to Rhys Matteo, the grandson who I have never met

My World Music was dedicated to Anthea, Irial , Darla and Brian Eno

My World Café was dedicated to Mundher Al-Adhami and Haifa Zangana

My World Rivers will be dedicated to thre memory of David Hencke and Brendan Ward

Brian Eno on "My World Music" - What a lovely book it is. I am reading it and loving it

One of the 40 contributions to chapter on river memories

RIVER TRAMPING

‘The river flows, flows to the sea

Wherever that river flows

 is where I want to be

Flow river flow….’

      The Byrds – Ballad of Easy Rider

I had never thought about River Tramping until I met the Dorset River Tramp. Walking the Stour from the Source at Six Wells Valley to Christchurch is a sixty four mile tramp down the Stour Valley from the margins of Selwood Forest to the sea. In times past it was a seasonal way of life, sleeping rough in Bender Tents (made of hazel rods and canvas) hidden in woodland copses flanking the river to avoid trespassing laws and poaching fish from the rivers. Often highly skilled at basket making and willow weaving, a river tramp could earn a living from making clothes pegs and chair mending, tinkering and grinding (sharpening tools, knives and repairing pots and pans) as well as offering farmers seasonal labour. Christchurch and the surrounding areas were home to some of the largest gypsy encampments in the south of England in the 19^th and early 20^th Centuries.

The Dorset River Tramp that I met was a man of letters - channelling Arnold’s scholar gypsy - with eyes as blue as robin’s eggs.  He carried a hazel rod which he was washing in the river and said was his ‘Tapping Tool’. ‘What are you tapping?’ I asked. ‘Why the oaks of course.’ This was how I learned the true meaning of ‘Knock on Wood’. The first knock was to awaken the tree spirit to ask the tree for a favour, the second knock was to say thanks. He told me that forest rivers, like parts of the Stour, flowing through woodland were the blood vessels of the land connecting sacred trees in a wetland network. The moving water washed the roots and a sacred grove of river bank trees was far more potent than a landlocked grove. He spoke of ‘Water Lore’ and how tree-tapping was combined with river work and for spell-binding. ‘Lookout for Dippers and Kingfishers’ he said, as he loped off into the Greenwood like a man who knew where he was going. I thought of Turner’s lights across Stourhead gardens and Constable’s river bank at Gillingham, the Stour’s inspiration flows on down the generations, ‘touch wood’.

www.davidwilson.org.uk