Playwright embarks on 181-mile Pilgrimage4Palestine fundraising walk while fasting as ‘gesture of solidarity to Muslims’

A British playwright, who raised £18,000 for charity by walking 150 miles from Bristol to London in 2025 while fasting, is undertaking the challenge again this year as a “gesture of solidarity to Muslims”, with an extra 31 miles across Spain.

Peter Oswald, 60, from Devon, is a former writer in residence at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre, and said his Pilgrimage4Palestine walk began after he felt a “sense of complete despair” watching a “genocide” unfolding in Gaza since October 7 2023.

He said he completed the 150-mile walk last year as a way of “calling to the soul of Britain through the soles of our feet”, alongside Nick Bilbrough, founder of charity The Hands Up Project, which connects international volunteers and mentors like Peter with children on the ground in Gaza who want to explore the arts.

He remembered one group was putting on a shortened production of Shakespeare’s King Lear in October 2023, which he watched a rehearsal of and then told the teacher on the ground that the children were “absolutely amazing”.

“That was our last communication,” Peter told PA Real Life. “And then their town was flattened.

“For all of us working with The Hands Up Project, this was a huge trauma. Obviously, not as much as it was for the people there.”

Peter said he initially “decided to just set off” on his own with a tent and walk from Bristol to London, but the activist group Bristol Palestine Alliance persuaded him to “slow down” and organise it properly to have events along the way.

Peter walked around 12 miles a day and observed Ramadan by fasting, then spent evenings at iftars – sunset meals to break the daily fast – in mosques along the route, which took him along the Kennet and Avon Canal towpath to Reading, before he continued to central London.

He also took part in poetry performances, reciting poems written by Palestinian children.

Throughout the walk, Peter said there were highs and lows, including “people honking and shouting… sometimes in support, sometimes in rage”.

“One of the greatest moments for me was in Newbury,” Peter said.

“People wanted them to fly the Palestinian flag as well and then suddenly, a Green Party councillor went inside, opened the window of the chamber, and just flew the Palestinian flag out the window by hand. Everybody cheered.

“Then a message came down that we could all come into the chamber, so we all filed in, spoke to the mayor, and were given sandwiches and tea. It was just a glorious occasion.”

As for challenges along the way, Peter said: “When we came through Datchet (near Windsor), suddenly there were Union Jacks, St George flags, Israeli flags everywhere, and people filming us from their cars and a kind of creepy atmosphere.

“It didn’t come to blows or anything. We just got through there as quickly as we could.”

“Somebody shouted at us, ‘Not in Datchet, thanks!’ But it was just bubbling (tension), it wasn’t any sort of flare-up,” he added.

Despite the interruptions, Peter said walking into London with Nick, Rowland, Sue and his wife Alice was “momentous”, especially with the Red Rebels – a silent, performance-activist troupe – by their side, who wore “outlandish red costumes” and weaved through the crowd ahead of them in solidarity.

Peter said he and guests gave speeches to the square “packed with people” on a “very, very hot” day, then went to have a “feast” in a Palestinian restaurant.

After the success of last year’s Pilgrimage4Palestine, Peter initially said he “wasn’t going to do it again”, but then Rowland, who is older than Peter by more than a decade, suggested it and he could not refuse.

The group plans to cover a similar route and meet some of the same people, but Peter said he and Nick be joined by Ashraf Kuhail, who was a northern Gaza-based co-ordinator for The Hands Up Project who was allowed out of the territory with his family last month.

In preparation, Peter said he simply walks “as much” as he can and that doing the trek while fasting is better than fasting regularly because there “wasn’t really time to feel hungry and thirsty”.

This year, the money raised will go towards a school in Cairo for displaced Palestinian children, which Peter said he and his wife visited in April 2025.

“I think it’s incredibly important to have solidarity with Muslims in this country,” Peter said.

“They feel, for the most part, that they’re under threat and I think that’s completely wrong that they should feel that way.

“My Muslim friends in Bristol are some of the most admirable people that I know. And when I saw them genuinely frightened when the (asylum seeker) hotels were being set on fire last summer, that struck me as just utterly wrong.

“For me, that’s one of the heartbeats of the pilgrimage.”

Peter said he would love the Pilgrimage4Palestine to become an annual event “woven” into The Hands Up Project.

To donate to Peter’s fundraiser, visit: www.justgiving.com/page/peter-oswald-1.