Portal:Oceania/Selected article/September, 2006

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Tom Neale (1902-1977) was a New Zealander who spent most of his life in the Cook Islands and 16 years living alone on the island of Suwarrow.

A boat dropped him off at Suwarrow in 1952 with two cats and all the supplies he could scrape together. Neale had a hut with water tanks, some books and a badly damaged boat left over from World War II. He planted a garden, domesticated chickens, and repaired the boat. He lived on fish, crayfish, chicken, eggs, paw-paw, coconut and breadfruit. In 1954, he put his back out, but was fortuitously rescued.

In 1960 he returned to the atoll with more provisions, having learned what were necessities from his previous stay. He stayed for three and a half years before deciding voluntarily to leave. His autobiography, An Island to Oneself, covers his life up to this point.

Neale returned to the atoll in 1967 and stayed there until 1977, when he was found ill with stomach cancer and taken to Rarotonga. He died eight months later.