The orgin of 'Left Field began 18 years ago when my wife, Anne Aylor, and I were on holiday on the Croatian island of Mljet. We were taking a much-needed break from our all-consuming work at the Pavarotti Music Centre in Mostar. Anne was working on her second novel, The Double Happiness Company and I was staring from our balcony at the harbour jetty below where a fisherman was smoking a cigarette…

The Other day I met with Rob Williams the CEO of War Child. He invited me to their office where I met some of their 30 + staff. With aid projects in six countries (seven soon with Yemen) and an annual budget in excess of £10 million reaching out to over 100,000 children, they are a very different organisation to the one I co-founded. But I am happy to see that music is still central to the charity…

Here is a clip from one of Eugene Skeef's drumming workshops at the Pavarotti Music Centre. When I left there in 2000 I wrote this, "On Sunday afternoons, you could find children and young people taking part with djembes, maracas, handbells, marimbas and wood blocks. These workshops were developed, both at the Centre and as part of the outreach work at orphanages and hospitals. After thirty minutes…

How David Bowie helped War Child. Between September 1994 and February 1997 Brian Eno and his wife Anthea organised three exhibitions and auctions for the charity. The first was 'Little Pieces from Big Stars'. It included Paul McCartney's driftwood carving and Linda’s photographs, Bono's music box containing sunglasses, Charlie Watts' drawing of a hotel telephone, Billy Bragg's brass rubbing and…

A Christmas story from 'Left Field'. "A regular guest at our house was Karl Henrik Køster, a Danish neurosurgeon who’d met my father in Bergen-Belsen when they were both serving in the RAMC. They became close friends and my sisters and I called him Uncle Karl. Because he always came to stay in December, this large man with his deep voice and Nordic accent was Father Christmas, though now I realise…

Here are the timelines for the publication of Left Field. You should receive your copy by April 2016 and possibly a bit earlier. Left Field will be in bookshops a month later, on 5 May. It's not too late to pledge for a special edition and have your name printed at the back of the book. Please inform your friends. If you want to keep up to date with Left Field news go here  The book is full of…

I met yesterday with Prof Nigel Osborne as he passed through London on his way from running children's workshops in Syria and Lebanon to Buxton. He was due to give a talk at the Buxton Opera House and attend the premier of a new work of his, 'Bosnian Voices', to be performed by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. The Chief Executive at Buxton is Simon Glinn, who played a significant role at the…

Further to my earlier blog about Dylan Thomas, here is Mervyn Levy's drawing of Dylan and his account of their schoolboy days together in Swansea. More about Mervyn's contribution to my play about Dylan in 'Left Field'.

NB: Unbound are offering £10 off all their titles until midnight of 4th November. Just enter 'AUTUMN15' at checkout.Tell your friends.

“We had, as always, tossed a farthing…

Russell Mills has created a great cover for Left Field. I am honoured that he has produced such an outstanding design, as effective as those he did for Don DeLillo and Milan Kundera. 

Left Field' is a memoir with many meadows, one of them containing the flowers and fields of the Croatian naïve painter Ivan Rabuzin. Some years ago, as his London agent, I produced a BBC Arena film made during the wars in the former Yugoslavia. With Rabuzin's paintings came a homespun philosophy: ‘When a man looks at something, he just sees half of it. At every moment, half the world is missing…

My father died two years ago aged 101. On his 100th birthday he received a card from the Queen. Hardly able to move he kicked it off his bed. He was one of the first Allied doctors to enter Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Would the Daily Mail care to denounce him as 'disrespectful' of his country? You can read about my dad in 'Left Field'.

Reg Keys is leading demands for the publication of the much-delayed Chilcot Enquiry. Reg's son Tom Keys, was one of six military policemen killed in Majar al-Kabir, Iraq in June 2003. Working with Felicity Arbuthnot and Brian Eno I helped organise the early days of his election campaign when he stood against Tony Blair in Sedgefield at the 2005 general election. You can read read more about Reg…

Marjane Satrapi, graphic novelist, illustrator and film director has said that:

“Images are a way of writing. When you have the talent to be able to write and draw, it seems a shame to choose one. I think it's better to do both.”

I agree and that is why Left Field will include photos. It is also why I am delighted that Russell Mills will be designing the book's cover. His images are his way…

Left Field is now 100% funded and will be published by Unbound in 2016. Thank you to all those who have bought the book and helped get it to publication. If you haven't yet ordered a copy now is a good moment to do so. First print will be hardback with your name published in the book and is a good read, according to those quoted below! If you have bought a copy please don't stop there - but forward…

I am excited that, if the book reaches its funding target, Russell Mills will design the book cover for Left Field. He is well known for his record covers - Michael Nyman, Peter Gabriel, Brian Eno, Nine Inch Nails amongst others. His book covers include Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Samuel Beckett and Don DeLillo. 

I like this from DeLillo: “I think it's only in a crisis…

Doing final edits on Left Field, I came across Pay-Uun Hiu's amazing article in de Volkskrant from December 1997. Writing about the opening of the Pavarotti Music centre, she had this to say about Eugene Skeef:

"Born in South Africa and former co-worker of Steve Biko in the Seventies, Skeef is a phenomenal drummer and has an equally phenomenal gift for music communication. In the small room…

Soon after the wars in former Yugoslavia, politicians from all sides actively nationalised their languages. Antun Vrdoljak, Croatian TV chief in the 1990s, declared that,"Language preserves the nation's history and culture ... language is the womb." At its most zenophobic, the Croatian Education Minister, Jasna Gotovac, said, "The fight for our language and culture is a part of the war." Alija Isakovic…

" I never got the chance to thank you for all your support and kindness in the process of the creation of Mostar Sevdah Reunion. Our lives have changed thanks to you, Eugene Skeef and Music Center Pavarotti … without you – no Mostar Sevdah Reunion, no me as a producer, no sevdah on the World Music map … I hope that one day, city of Mostar will officially recognize your priceless contribution to the…

A regular guest at our house was Karl Henrik Køster, a Danish neurosurgeon who wrote for The Lancet and who’d met my father in Bergen-Belsen.They became friends and my sisters and I called him Uncle Karl. He always arrived with a large bottle of Cherry Heering, and gifts for us children. I remember the brightly-painted wooden soldier with its red tunic and blue trousers. It had moveable arms and…

Brian Eno and me

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/david_wilson/

The other weekend I attended a retreat at Ampleforth Abbey, the Benedictine monastery near York, on the subject of ‘whistleblowers’. The idea came from Ian Foxley and Paul Moore.

Ian Foxley is a retired lieutenant colonel who was appointed by the MoD in 2010 to oversee a £2bn military communications project in Saudi Arabia. He had to flee after uncovering and exposing bribes paid to Saudi officials…

Brian Eno- "This is an excellent and inspiring book. David's 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."

Sir Tom Stoppard- "David Wilson has lived a life and a half ... the broken world needed people like David then; it still does and always will."

Dorothy Byrne, Head of Channel…

What do U2, Pavarotti, Argentine cowboys, the ex-Yugoslav wars, back room art deals and Brian Eno have in common? Answer: 'Left Field'. Brian Eno interviews David ( http://ow.ly/JI8jx )about his forthcoming memoir. Brian and David have a long history together and David appears liberally in Eno's diary "A Year with Swollen Appendices". He's the David that very obviously isn't Bowie

https…

The gauchos of the 19th century, the sort found in José Hernández poem, “El Gaucho Martín Fierro”, made their boots from the skin of a horse's leg, their stirrups from knuckle bones. Their elaborately-decorated facóns were tucked into the back of their belts. These knives survived into the 1960s when I was in Argentina – we'd slice barbequed beef for breakfast with them before herding the cattle.…

Originally a baseball term, the Oxford Dictionaries have other definitions and it is these I am referring to: "A surprising or unconventional position or style' and '(of artistic work) radical or experimental'. I hope my life is a YES to both of those.

Left Field went 'live' yesterday as I was returning by train from Barcelona where I was visiting my 5-month old grandson, Rhys. His photo appears…