Left Field reviews

'Gasholder' review (see pic) will be online soon.  

David is an adventurer and a freethinker, who did something truly useful with his life - Brian Eno
David Wilson has lived a life and a half. The broken world needed people like David; it still does - Sir Tom Stoppard
What a life this man has led - Dorothy Byrne, Head of Channel 4 Documentaries
David's entire life has been dedicated to trying to make the world a better place - Craig Murray, ex-UK Ambassador



'Left Field' reviews

His shared heart wrenching observations are clearly a highlight of this richly textured, moving work … Raw and compelling; a story well told of a vital and varied life in a war-torn region Kirkus Reviews
From heavy drinking to launching a charity, David Wilson’s life story is an absorbing read Camden New Journal
Sometimes funny, often moving and occasionally tragic ... one of my top recent reads -Morning Star
'Left Field' is a thoughtful and gentle memoir. David’s obvious good nature and ability to connect with people is demonstrated over and over Socialist Review 

Watch the Left Field film

News for 2017 - Juliet Etchingham and ITV's 'On Assignment' will be visiting the Pavarotti Music Centre in September to film on the 20th anniversary of its opening

Left Field is published by Unbound, distributed by Penguin Books and available at Waterstones, Foyles, on Amazon and other retail websites

Whistles need Blowing

Whistles are for blowing ....We know the names Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange. Forced exile, imprisonment and confinement. They are whistleblowers whose lives have suffered from attempting to better the human condition. I personally know a couple more; Ex-SAS trooper, Ben Griffin and former UK Ambassador, Craig Murray. Ben was persecuted for holding information about the UK military's collaboration with US torturers, Craig for wanting Jack Straw and his then Foreign Office employers to acknowledge that some allies in the 'war against terror' boil their prisoners alive. My respect for these people is great because, at a much lower level, I too was a whistleblower. I didn't suffer their fates, but was sacked from the NGO I had co-founded, and never employed again in that world. Even as an OAP, I was shocked to be refused work stuffing envelopes at an NGO whose work in the Middle East I had admired. When I have spoken out on political matters I have been told by that I must make it clear that I have nothing to do with my former charity. So I recommend Ian Cobain's article in the Guardian, (16 Feb 2016) about the Law Commissioners recent report suggesting a new law criminalising, not only those who disclose official information, but anyone “who obtains or gathers information”. If passed into law this will tighten up even further on the 1979 Official Secrets Act which the Liberal MP, Clement Freud said, “gives the attorney general more power than a bad man should have or a good man should need.” Of course this covers only the state sector, but as in my case, this thinking infects the wider world. Sadly in Trump-World we are going to need an army of Snowdens, Mannings, Assanges, Griffins and Murrays. You can read more about my experiences as a whistleblower in 'Left Field'

Personal battles of the man behind War Child

“From heavy drinking to launching a charity, David Wilson’s life story is an absorbing read” Camden New Journal reviews 'Left Field'

Earlier reviews:  Morning Star     Socialist Review     Kirkus Reviews 


Buy 'Left Field' for £13 (includes P&p) from Public Reading Rooms
 

Kirkus review of 'Left Field'

review of 'Left Field' has been featured in Kirkus Reviews 12/15 issue. Less than 10% of their reviews are chosen, so am well pleased. "His shared heart wrenching observations are clearly a highlight of this richly textured, moving work … Raw and compelling; a story well told of a vital and varied life in a war-torn region."(Kirkus Reviews).
 * Only one month to go to release of audio version of the book 

Signed copies of 'Left Field'

Signed copies of 'Left Field' are available from Public Reading Rooms for £13 to include postage.

ITV's 'On Assignment' in Mostar

Julie Etchingham has confirmed that she will be coming to Mostar in September to make a short film for ITV's 'On Assignment' – about the Pavarotti Music Centre 20 years after its founding. Julie was in Mostar for BBC Newsround when Pavarotti came to open the centre. Here is a film of the opening.

She will meet some of the children, now adults, who attended the Centre twenty years ago and find out what has happened to them in the intervening years and how the PMC affected their lives. People like Adin Omerovic, aged nine at the time, who remembers this:

‘I, together with my classmates, practised a song to perform for the opening of the Pavarotti Music Centre. I had heard of plans for the Centre, but I could not dream that I would be there or near to Pavarotti. At the end of the song, “Big Bam Boo”, I gave Luciano Pavarotti a flower. I still remember that day when we waited for him so long and I cannot forget how strong my heart was beating after his speech. He said, ‘Grazie, grazie,’ I still remember that. I got a toy from him which I still have. I would like to have more memories like this one. Thank you very much, Pavarotti.’

Left Field is available at Waterstones and on Amazon

Buy Left Field here

Corbyn's wage caps

Jeremy Corbyn has excited the fury of the media with his proposal for wage caps. The Daily Mail denounced his 'sub-Marxist drivel' while The Daily Telegraph fumed at his 'staggering assault on individual ambition and market forces.' 
In fact he probably took the idea, not from Das Kapital but from (Lord) Richard Rogers, who long ago applied a ratio earnings cap in his architectural practice.
 With lurid accounts of how planes out of the UK would be full of investment bankers and football players I wonder how many charity bosses would be on board. 
As the co-founder of the charity War Child * I am shocked at the salary level of charity bosses. We have all heard of the £234,000 salary at Save the Children. In fact executives working for the UK’s top 100 charities have an average remuneration package of just over £167,000.
I suppose that the wage of the present War Child CEO, a mere £95,000, is modest by comparison. 
The justification is always that the voluntary sector has to compete with the corporate world and attract appropriate 'talent”. 
Reprieve founder, Clive Stafford Clark, would disagree. Supporting the rights of prisoners worldwide, the charity employs numerous lawyers who would be paid much more in corporatopia. In a recent Guardian article, Clark wrote that the highest paid cannot be paid more than one-third more than the lowest paid... 'one should want to do good rather than do well. That said, we pay a very reasonable salary, and we attract brilliant people from all walks of life – we just don’t pay them (or me) excessively, and we do it with a degree of equality. … fairness is much more likely to foster happiness than the brutal competition over money advocated by some.'
Here here to that and I would recommend that the charity I founded follow the Reprieve example. 
If wage cap principles cannot be applied in the voluntary sector we will have increased cynicism towards their motives on the part of the public and a diminishment of their potential to bring about change for the better in this 1% world. 
As Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah, the secretary-general of Civicus has said: ‘We have become a part of the problem rather than the solution. Our corporatization has steered us towards activism-lite, a version of our work rendered palatable to big business and capitalist states. Not only does this approach threaten no one in power, but it stifles grassroots activism.' 

 
*I have been asked to state that my views concerning War Child are my own, otherwise “there is a risk that I will be seen to be passing myself off as a current War Child representative.”

You can read about my work as former director at War Child and how it ended in Left Field