Read the book online at archive.org
Tom Neale, in his book "An Island To Oneself", writes in chapter "Visitors by Helicopter", "The landing of the helicopters was to have an interesting sequel. Though I knew nothing of it at the time, the U.S. Navy released a brief news item about their visit to Suvarov, and this was how Noel Barber, the author and journalist, first heard about me whilst recovering in hospital from a car crash.
Apparently he decided he wanted to see the island - and me - and arrived about five months later in the Manua Tele, which he had chartered in Pago Pago. When he landed Noel was still only able to walk with the aid of sticks for he had been badly smashed up, but he stayed two days, and brought me a liberal supply of stores which included tea, flour, corned beef, together with whisky, rum and cigarettes. He also brought with him Chuck Smouse, an American photographer, and he and Noel took many of the photographs which appear in this book. I was so touched by the stores they had brought for me that when the Manua Tele had sailed, I sat down in the office and wrote Noel Barber a long letter of thanks. It was fourteen months before that letter left the island; for it was fourteen months before the next ship called in at Suvarov."
Noel Barber was the author of six novels, including ""Tanamera", a novel set in Singapore, and "The Other Side of Paradise", and twenty-six non-fiction books, among them "The War of the Running Dogs: How Malaya Defeated the Communist Guerrillas, 1948-60". His potboiler "The Other Side of Paradise" was made into a movie, as was "Tanamera".
To read the whole book online at archive.org
In his memoirs "The Natives Were Friendly ... So We Stayed the Night", he recalls his first meeting with Tom Neale, and on page 200 mentions Tom's letter, "In the letter Tom told me how he had been taken ill on the island, and was preparing for a lonely death when a small American yacht anchored by chance in the lagoon, and gave him passage to Raro, where he faced months of convalescence before he could return to the island - if ever. 'What about my book?' he wrote. 'You remember you said you would help me. Have you got three months to spare?'"
Which is how it came to pass that British author Noel Barber helped Tom Neale to write his book "An Island to Oneself", which was written before he returned to Suwarrow for a third time. The book is virtually a bible for anyone who dreams of living alone on a deserted tropical island.
But there was a lot of stuff about his personal life this very private man purposely omitted, including the six children he likely sired around the Pacific. It is well known he had two children, Arthur and Stella, to his wife in Rarotonga, Sarah Haua, whom he married on 15 June, 1956.
That was after his first spell on Suwarrow. But not many people know that Neale sired two more children in the Cook Islands before them, John and Jeanne, and quite possibly two more in Tahiti before that, the latter two now completely off the radar. That's a lot of alimony. No wonder he escaped to a deserted tropical island.
