Tom Neale sitting on his bed on Suwarrov Island
We find some books, and then there are books that find us. Many years ago, while walking the dogs at Burril Lake, a battered old copy of Tom Neale's "An Island to Oneself" found me while I was idly rummaging through a tiny second-hand shop. I have since replaced the battered old copy with a beautiful hardcover edition, but other than that the same book has stayed with me all through the years. It still resonates deeply with my emotional state and perspective which is that I want to be alone and yet at the same time would enjoy the company of some close friends.
It would be too much to say that Tom Neale became something of a role model for me - after all, no-one needs an accountant on a desert island - but he seemed just as much torn between wanting to be alone and yet enjoying the company of close friends when they were around. In his attitude and even in his ascetic lifestyle and appearance he seemed so similar to my lifelong friend Noel who had spent a large part of his life not on a desert island but in remote parts of New Guinea and who, after his return to Australia brought on by the country's independence, had lived his last few years until his death in 1995 rather lonely and forlorn.
Mind you, since I have had a bad fall due to a sudden black-out in the middle of the night on the way, of all places, to the toilet, I have been sitting on the edge of my bed just like Tom Neale in the above photo to let my blood regain circulation before standing up to my full height.
It's been keeping me out of trouble, as has my reading of all those books which is my way of being intimate friends with hundreds of people, because everything in print is something of a personal and confidential confession. Of course, having hundreds of intimate friends is an impracticality in life, especially when those intimate friends have died long before you were born, which makes reading all the more enriching.
