John Everingham

John Everingham is an Australian journalist residing in Thailand.

Born in Australia in 1949, Everingham was in high school in 1966 when the urge to travel overcame the desire to study. He dropped out of school and left home at 16 years old, and left Australia on the traditional journey to London, but by motorcycle. Everingham began his career in photojournalism in the mid-1960s, as a teenager trekking through Indochina and learning languages. He originally worked as a translator for TV crews covering the Vietnam War.

During the Vietnam War he received acclaim from the mainstream media, and disdain from the American military, for his reporting on the effects of B-52 dumping runs on their way back to bases in Udon Thani, Thailand — when bombers didn't drop all their payload over Hanoi, they dumped their bombs in Laos to cut the risk of accidents on landing, which led to innocent rural Lao and Hmong being killed.

Everingham gained international fame when he sought asylum for his Laotian wife, Keo Sirisomphone, by swimming her out of Laos under the Mekong River near Vientiane using scuba equipment. The story was turned into a TV movie starring Michael Landon,^[1] called Love is Forever,^[2] based on an article Everingham had written for Reader's Digest. Everingham has a cameo role in the movie.

In 1972 John Everingham employed 15 year old Chanthome Souksamlane as his cook/housekeeper. They lived together and married In Vientiane Laos on 1st October 1976. They both flew to Australia on 15th December 1976. However, early in 1977 John returned to Laos without Chanthome; arriving back in Brisbane six months later, John informed Chanthome their marriage was over. They divorced on the 7th December 1978. ^[3]

In 1983, Everingham was the contact to Cork Graham for Capt. Kidd Treasure Hunter Richard Knight. ^[4]

John Everingham is the managing director of ArtAsia Press.^[5]

Family

John and Keosiri Everingham have two children: Chester Everingham, and Lao–Australian actor Ananda Everingham.

References