Gerald Kingsland

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Gerald W. Kingsland was a journalist and writer born in Whitchurch, Buckinghamshire, England on 8 March 1930. He was five times married (five sons, two daughters) and died London on 20 March 2000.

He was a successful journalist and publisher in England, then a wine grower in Italy. In 1980 he set out to become a modern Robinson Crusoe seeking a remote tropical island where he could be self-sufficient together with a female companion. He advertised in Time Out magazine in 1980 for a woman to share life with him on a deserted island. He met up with 24-year-old Lucy Irvine (Kingsland was 49). They went to Tuin Island, in the Torres Strait between Australia and Papua New Guinea, uninhabited and lacking a dependable water supply, where they nearly perished, but were saved by Badu Islanders. This he wrote about in The Islander and was depicted in the film Castaway played by Oliver Reed.

He wrote:

• The Islander - Publisher: Sevenoaks, Kent : New English Library, 1984.
• The voyager : the further adventures of the man who wanted to be Robinson Crusoe - Publisher: Sevenoaks, Kent : New English Library, 1987.
• Comfort for a castaway - Publisher: London : Gerald Kingsland Pub., 2000.
• In quest of glory : Korean War memoirs - Publisher: Sevenoaks London : New English Library, 1989.
• Robinson Crusoe heute : Leben auf einsamer Insel.^{[citation needed]}