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.

Peter became involved with the charity in 2017 when he said he helped children in Gaza with plays and poetry competitions.

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.

“I know that the girl who was playing King Lear is alive, but I don’t know about any of the others.

“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.

After extensive planning by Bristol Palestine Alliance, Peter set off from Bristol on March 18 2025, alongside Nick, as well as volunteers Rowland Dye and Sue Luger, who helped along the way and drove a support vehicle.

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.

“It was raining lightly and a crowd had gathered in the Market Square by the Town Hall, where they were flying the Ukrainian flag.

“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.”

Peter said he was welcomed in mosques and community centres across the South West, where he shared food with local Muslim people.

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.

At the end of the 13-day trek, Peter reached Parliament Square, where a crowd was waiting for him, and he said people threw “some kind of liquid” at him, and chanted on loudspeakers all through his rally to “try to disrupt it”.

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.

By the end of the trek, Peter and Nick were thrilled to have raised £18,000 – including from the sale of several books of poems by Palestinian children – which he said “keeps the teachers in Gaza going”.

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.

Starting on February 28, they will also be walking an additional 31 miles from the Spanish mountain town of Orgiva to the medieval Muslim city of Grenada, where Peter said they plan to have iftar at the Grand Mosque, then the group will fly to Bristol to commence the UK leg, before a scheduled finish on March 22 in London.

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.

Speaking about why it is important to take on the Pilgrimage4Palestine again, Peter pointed to “hatred of Muslims” reaching “really horrific heights” across the world.

“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.

“I think what the Muslim community has to offer to Britain is immeasurable. So instead of being ostracised and made into scapegoats, we should see them as a vast spiritual and cultural resource for this country.

“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.