On the white, sandy shore where the palm trees meet the coral and crying frigate birds circle overhead, a man scans the horizon, shielding his eyes from the strong afternoon sun. He is 5 feet 10 inches tall and looks taller because he weighs only 130 pounds; he is remarkably trim and free of wrinkles, considering his age, and his body is tanned the color of mahogany. His face is clean‐shaven, his gray hair cropped short. He wears faded green and white shorts, held together in front with a pair of large safety pins, and a straw hat.
Tom Neale, 71 years old, is the only human being living on Anchorage Island, which is a half‐mile long and 300 yards wide. It is a lesser stone in a random necklace of coral, 1,600 miles northeast of New Zealand in the South Pacific, one of a cluster of islets that make up the atoll of Suwarrow, which is part of the Manihiki group which is, in turn, part of the better-known Cook Islands.
Anchorage Island is so remote that Neale's only contacts with the rest of the world are an inter-island copra ship that calls, more or less regularly, every two years, and passengers on yachts that sometimes sail into his lagoon.
Last July [1972], Bette Thompson, a freelance writer, went ashore to meet Neale when a 50‐foot sloop she was on, the Velaris, dropped anchor beside his atoll.
The man is Tom Neale, a New Zealander who roamed the South Pacific on freighters for 30 years before he decided to settle here. He casts expert eyes over the two still‐distant yachts: he is pleased by the prospect of meeting other human beings, but there is uncertainty mixed with the excitement, for few people come to his kingdom. He turns and with a firm gait walks up a coral path bordered by empty bottles to his compound.
The yachts, the Velaris and the Shaula, drop anchor in the lagoon about 200 yards out and four visitors row ashore. They follow the trail and discover Tom's compound. “Anybody home?” one calls. There is no answer, only the distant thunder of waves on the barrier reef above the rustle of palm fronds. But there are signs of life: footprints in the sand and smoldering embers in the cookhouse. Chickens cluck; two cats, unafraid, stretch; a coconut crab jerks its way into a hole.
The visitors hear the sound of wood being chopped and follow it along the path, which is shaded by tall tauhuna shrubs and papaw trees. They spot the hermit of Suwarrow, though he is almost obscured by dense thickets of pan danus and gardenias.
“Make yourself at home,” Tom says. “I'll give you a tour of the place later on but right now I'm very busy. Lots of chores to be done before teatime.”
He continues to work with his machete and his visitors stroll back along the trail to find out what home is like: a sturdy shack, its roof made of flat tened oil drums. A table on the porch has a neat arrangement of pens, pencils, writing paper and books, and there is a newspaper that is several months old. A couple of clean dishcloths hang from a line, moving gently in the breeze.
Inside, in the living room, there are two other tables covered with shiny oilcloth, several chairs, and orange crates that serve as cupboards and book shelves. There are wall shelves as well, holding screw‐top jars containing tea, powdered milk, sugar and flour. The cutlery, china and glass in the cupboards are spotless, and every item, the barometer on the wall, the kerosene lamps, the scores of books, the bowl of tomatoes, seems to have its own special place, a place designated by an orderly man. The walls and floor of the but have been fashioned from planks; above the windows are wooden shutters that can be lowered during stormy weather.
Simple though it is, the house is weatherproof. Hurricanes rip and tear at everything in their path in the South Pacific each year, and although Suwarrow Atoll's median temperature is 74.5 degrees, it has its share of rough weather. It is a mixed curse: The rain fall guarantees Tom's water supply, which is stored in a five‐foot‐high tank beneath the shack's roof gutter.
Nearby are three smaller huts, similarly built but, unlike the house, with dirt floors. They are the bathhouse, with its washbowl on a shelf; the galley, including a primitive oven made of bricks spanned by an iron grating, and a storage shed, stocked with tools and spare timber. Beside them is a vegetable garden with neat rows of onions beans and sweet potatoes and cucumber, squash and tomato plants of healthy dimensions. Beyond the garden, hibiscus blooms have drifted from their trees to blanket the ground in pink. Farther on, 17 chickens scratch about in an enclosure of wire fencing, The entire compound, the tangible evidence of a squatter's empire, covers about half an acre.
“Home” is adequate if not posh, and safe enough; but how does a still energetic man almost entirely without human contact occupy his time and cope with the problems of isolation on this speck in the middle of the Pacific?
On Tom Neale's typical day he gets up at dawn, feeds the chickens and collects their eggs; only then does he boil water in a cast‐iron kettle for his first pot of tea of the day. Breakfast is a couple of boiled eggs, perhaps with some stewed tomatoes and a chunk of coconut. He prepares all his meals in ordinary cooking pots placed on a grating over the wood fire in his cooking shed; he keeps the fire smoldering at all times to avoid wasting matches, more difficult to replace than the wood itself.
Then to work: tending the garden, collecting firewood, picking up fallen coconuts, cleaning and maintaining the house, hooking or spearing fish in the shallows of the lagoon.
His lunch usually consists of bread fruit, bananas or papaws. After turning out the chickens for the afternoon, he usually puts out in his 12‐foot sail boat to see if anything of value has been washed ashore on the neighboring islets, or takes a swim in his favorite bay. When he returns, he often takes a nap, then completes his chores — tidying the trails around the compound, baking some scones and doing more work on the garden.
He bathes every evening, then has his supper before dark. The menu usually includes fish — ku, parrot fish, cod or crayfish — with sweet potatoes and beans or squash from the garden, followed by fruit or perhaps a cake baked on the hot bricks in the cookhouse. He also has a stock of canned goods, including bully beef, fruit, preserves and soup, but considers these valuable items to be consumed sparingly; he never knows when he will be able to replace them. Occasionally he'll roast one of his chickens or a coconut crab.
When he does the dishes, he holds up each one to the light for close inspection. He has many meticulously followed habits: tea is brewed at 4 P.M. daily, and every evening he strolls down to the beach to watch the sun go down, a ritual that is a favorite in his steady routine. He sits on a box‐chair, rolls a cigarette and sips still another mug of tea as the sun sets the western horizon briefly, brilliantly aflame.
At night, he reads, or writes his journal or, optimistically, a letter, by the light of a kerosene lamp. (A 50‐gallon drum of kerosene will last him five years.) He does some more reading in bed before going to sleep. Sometimes, he gets up during the night to set traps for hermit crabs, which invade his vegetable plot and eat the crops.
Not all days are typical, however, even on Tom Neale's island. In addition to the hurricane season and its unwelcome damage to roofs, fences, trees and crops, Tom has endured bouts of fever and other mishaps that are always doubly tough when they must be overcome alone. One common injury nearly cost him his life.
He injured his back one day while tossing an iron weight that served as an anchor onto the beach. He was able to crawl back to his shack and collapse on the kapok mattress on his bed, but the pain was so intense he could scarcely move. He says he wondered if he would die this way — months could pass before a yacht might call. And there were only two coconuts within reach of his bed. He thought he would starve.
Four days later, two young Americans sailed their yacht into the lagoon, came ashore and found Tom on his bed. They stayed for two weeks, building up his strength with canned meat and massaging his back until he was able to get on his feet again.
Until his rescuers arrived Tom had been unable to get out of bed. All he could do was roll his head and move his arms. He recalls that he must have been dozing during much of those four days and nights because he has little recollection of how he felt. He does not remember opening the coconuts lying beside him, though the two Americans found that they had been cut open and partially eaten.
Despite this incident, Tom has only fleeting apprehensions of falling ill and feels that his simple medical kit is adequate insurance against that possibility. The kit includes sulfathiazole tablets for fevers, antiseptics, Vaseline, bandages and Band‐Aids, and, he says, it has served him well.
On another occasion, a sudden storm capsized Tom's sailboat several miles offshore. He clung to his overturned craft until the storm died. Then, for five hours, he dove again and again to free the sail, boom and mast before managing to right the boat.
Another storm brought Tom three guests for two months. An American, Ed Vessey, his Samoan wife and their 13‐year‐old daughter had come ashore from their 40‐foot yacht for a visit when a sudden squall snapped the craft's anchor and drove her onto a coral head. The yacht sank, marooning the trio with just the clothes they were wearing.
All four shared Tom's bedroom. The two men spent weeks diving to the submerged boat to salvage clothing, bed ding, canned food and whatever else they could find. They had no diving gear, just one snorkel mask between them. They brought up cartons of cigarettes, and Mrs. Vessey, a chain smoker, broke them open, washed out the salt, and let them dry; until their find, she had been rolling banana leaves and smoking them. Tom retrieved a treasure for Vessey as well: his false teeth, scooped up from the floor of the yacht's cabin.
Tom says the castaways settled down well to his routine though at first he wouldn't allow Mrs. Vessey or her daughter in his kitchen. They never had a cross word. But the family was nevertheless overjoyed when they sighted a passing ship from New Zealand and managed to signal it with mirror flashes. When the ship picked up the Vesseys, Tom says, he was more deeply affected than at any previous leave‐taking he had known.
Tom had no desire to leave with the Vesseys. But there have been times, by choice or necessity, when he did leave, knowing it would not be easy to return. On one of his vacations to civilization, he produced a book, “An Island to Oneself”, describing how he came to live what for others is a fantasy life.
His first visit to Anchorage Island was as a crewman aboard a schooner that called here during World War II to deliver supplies to “coastwatchers,” men based on the island to send radio reports on enemy aircraft or ships in the area. It was the coastwatchers who built the shacks that Tom has adapted and now uses. The lookout tower they constructed also still stands, although it is now hidden by jungle growth.
The beauty of Suwarrow Atoll, its plentiful supply of coconuts, breadfruit and papaw and the abundance of fish in the lagoon convinced him: During his years of wandering he had dreamed of a haven and this was it. He would no longer have to work for other people; his life would be his own. He did some meticulous planning while still working as a storekeeper in Rarotonga, the capital of the Cook Islands, and accumulated the long list of supplies he would need to live on the island. He had plenty of time to make his preparations. It was not until 1952, seven years after he had made his decision to exile himself, that he found a ship in Rarotonga that would drop him off with his stores at the atoll.
Suwarrow is off the trade routes, shipping rarely passes it and diverting a vessel is always expensive. The only way for Tom to get himself and his supplies — they were stacked to the ceiling in his shack at “Raro” —to the atoll was to find the skipper of some small, inter-island ship that was passing near the spot and persuade him that it was worth his while to go off course and put into the lagoon. Finally Tom heard that a friend with a converted 100‐ton submarine chaser was planning a trip from Rarotonga to Manihiki, which meant sailing within sight of Suwarrow. The man agreed to take Tom for £30 (about $75).
When he finally left for the Island, which is 515 miles northwest of “Raro,” several women offered to go with him. “You need someone to cook and look after you when you are sick,” said one. “You won't even have to marry me.” Tom, who has always been a bachelor, feels that the Polynesian women of the Cooks are handsome and make good wives. But, in an unselfconscious parody of all the jokes ever told and cartoons drawn about deserted islands, he asks, “What could be worse than being trapped on an island with someone who got on your nerves?”
When he arrived, he found that the huts built by the coastwatchers were still largely intact, even though they were overgrown with vines and creepers. Even the few pieces of furniture, including a bed, were still in good shape. And the watchers had left behind about 200 books. Tom had spent his last $5 on a few books before he left Rarotonga. “The only thing I demand,” he says, “is an interesting book in bed the last thing at night.” Tom describes his taste in literature as catholic, but his preference leans toward books about island life and seamanship — Joseph Conrad, C.S. Forester and Nordhoff and Hall, for example. He also enjoys Aldous Huxley, Somerset Maugham and Nevil Shute. Darwin's “The Origin of the Species” and several of Dickens's works are also on his shelves. If he particularly enjoys a book, he'll make a point of rereading it. Westerns and thrillers don't interest him much.
Tom's first stay on the island lasted from October, 1952, until June, 1954, a period during which only two yachts called; it ended soon after he wrenched his back and was discovered by the two Americans who subsequently looked af ter him. Realizing that he needed medical attention, he sent word through his two rescuers to ask the Commissioner in Rarotonga to instruct the next ship coming through the area to pick him up (at government expense), and one did within a month. He turned his chickens out to run wild, packed his bag and took his two cats with him. “It was the saddest moment of my life,” he says.
When Tom felt fit again in Rarotonga, officials of shipping companies there refused to take him back to Anchorage on their inter-island ships. They said it would cost too much money to go so far off route for one person; they also said they did not want the responsibility of leaving him alone again. He returned to his job as a storekeeper but he always planned for his return. He built his 12‐foot sailboat, which he would take with him when the day came. Finally it did; a sympathetic friend with a ketch offered to take Tom, his sailboat and a new load of supplies back to the atoll.
Landing there again, in April, 1960, with his stock of lumber, fowl, garden tools, canned food and kerosene, he found that jungle growth had encircled his home, the porch roof had blown down and the garden had disappeared. However, the buildings were largely as he had left them six years earlier. In his living room he found a $20 bill left by a yachtsman. An attached note thanked whomever it might concern for the use of the facilities and the chickens that had been eaten.
This time Tom remained for more than three and a half years; in that period, only six yachts called. In December, 1963, a couple of months after the Vessey castaways had been picked up, and perhaps more affected by his contact with them than he realized, he left Anchorage again and returned to Rarotonga. In a postscript to his book he explains that a variety of circumstances contributed to his decision, the main one being the prospect of a lonely death. Another was a group of pearl divers, Manihiki natives, who had descended on Suwarrow: Their noise and proximity disturbed him.
The divers eventually lost interest in the atoll. Tom, too, changed his mind about the uncertainties of living beyond the reach of help. He found another willing yachtsman and came back home, probably for the last time, in 1966. He plans to remain here as long as his health allows him to do so.
When the group from the sloop Velaris met Tom in July of this year, the year 1972, he was asked what supplies he could use if another yacht called from Pagopago. He is reluctant to ask for anything and makes it clear he does not want to be a burden to anyone. He prides himself on how much he can do without.
“I could use tobacco,” he said, “but it must be strong. One man sent me a tin, took a year before I got it. I returned it to him because it was too weak.”
He stood chatting with his hands on his hips, leaning forward a little because of arthritis. He speaks quickly, his sharp, clean New Zealand accent spotted with American slang. When he listens, his brown eyes seem to penetrate one's soul.
Finally he decided that some garden seeds also would be useful, and some cans of butter, his favorite brand of canned peas and perhaps a bottle of rum.
“We want to invite you to a barbecue on your beach,” said a visitor from the Velaris. “The other yacht, the Shaula, speared a turtle and we plan to have a little party.
“I'm a bit tired and want to retire early,” Tom replied. “But I may drop down to the beach later for a few minutes. Thank you for the invitation.”
The next day the visitors discovered that Tom, having heard that there were three little girls aboard the Shaula, had built a little shelter of palm fronds for them on the beach. “In case it rains,” he explained. “I thought it would be nice for the children to have a place to stay dry.” He had also cut some sugar cane for them.
That night Tom agreed to go aboard the Velaris for dinner. “Yes,” he said, “hut don't fix anything fancy or go to a lot of trouble. I've got to let the fowls out and feed the cats. I won't be ready until sundown.”
The moment the sun dissolved into the barrier reef and the lagoon became a serene pond, Tom appeared on the beach, wearing a shirt and plastic shoes as well as his shorts, waiting to be picked up. As he climbed on board, he offered a little bag and said, “These might taste good at sea.” The bag contained six fresh eggs.
Over a dinner of ham, curried rice, corn, lime custard and sparkling wine, Tom disclosed that the occasion was indeed a celebration for him, for this was the sixth anniversary of his return here in 1966. He said that many times since then he had been saddened by the departure of yachtsmen who left his lagoon heading for a world of lights, cars, cinemas and shops. But Tom refused to accept the tensions and problems that are the price of such luxuries. He was not disillusioned with society, or the world; he took, in fact, an intelligent interest in it. He merely preferred a simple, solitary life, and a peaceful one.
And to the obvious question, Tom is neither a screwball nor a crank. He is thoughtful, well-read and articulate.
The night was full of stars when the time came for Tom to be rowed ashore after dinner. He took with him gifts of canned butter, a package of envelopes and a felt‐tipped pen, a present that intrigued him. He had never seen one.
The next day the people aboard the Velaris paid a final visit ashore before sailing away. One of the party asked Tom about the best place to look for sea urchin spines. “Out there on the reef,” he replied, pointing. She waded out on the reef, but an hour's search proved fruitless. However, when she returned to the beach, she found, neatly stacked, a bundle of more than 20 long, purple spines."
I found this article by Bette Thompson, published on 26 November 1972 in the New York Times, on the internet. It is hard to read in its original and I transcribed it to this blog, so that whenever I have my own Tom Neale moment, I can grap a thermos full of hot and sweet tea and hike out to cosy "Melbourne" where I can read it in the light of a kerosine lamp before dropping off to sleep to the sounds of frogs and crickets.
Tom Neale's book "An Island to Oneself" has become a South Seas classic and Tom's memory lives on. It is a terrific book for would-be hermits or just those of us who long for solitude. And you don't have to be a sailor to love this book because it isn't really about sailing. It's about being comfortable being completely alone, and surviving without a grocery store, a doctor, or a dentist for hundreds of miles around.
One unforgettable scene: when a friendly sailing yacht departs Neale's island after a visit of several days, Neale stands on the beach waving goodbye. His emotions at that moment are a mix of affection (he sincerely liked his visitors) and relief (he also wants his solitude back).
Neale stayed on the island twice, from 1952-1956 and 1960-1964, which are described in the book. He then came back for the third time in 1967 for another ten years until 1977, when, stricken with stomach cancer, he was taken back to Rarotonga, where he died at the age of 75.
If you only buy or read one more book for the rest of your life - make sure it is "An Island to Oneself". It is one of those books that is quite capable of leaving a mark on you for life. It certainly has with me.
But I leave the last words to Tom who wrote, ""I chose to live in the Pacific Islands because life there moves at the sort of pace which you feel God must have had in mind originally, when He made the sun to keep us warm - and provided the fruits of the earth for the taking ..."
