Neely Tom

Thomas Francis Neal was born in Wellington, New Zealand, but his family moved to Greymouth when he was a child, and then to Timaru when he was seven years old. His parents were Frank Frederick Neal and Emma Sarah Neal (née Chapman). He wanted to join the Royal Navy of New Zealand, but it turned out that at 18 he was too old to study as a sailor. Then Tom joined the merchant fleet as an apprentice engineer. Over the next four years, the Nile traveled around the islands of the Pacific Ocean on the ships of the merchant fleet. Then Tom left the fleet in order to have more freedom and independently travel around the islands. He spent the next six years moving from island to island, doing short-term jobs such as cutting bushes or planting bananas.

After several months in Timaru in 1928, Neil returned to the islands in the Pacific Ocean and settled on Moorea (an island near Tahiti ), where he lived until 1943, doing casual work and enjoying a quiet, unhurried life. Then he was offered a job as a replacement storekeeper on the Cook Islands . His task was to work in small shops on various islands, while their permanent storekeepers were on vacation. As a storekeeper, he was also an adviser to local communities. He met with writer Robert Dean Frisbie in Rarotonga and was fascinated by his tales of the Suvorov Atoll, where Frisbee lived for some time during World War II with military observers. Tom Neal was so fascinated by the stories about the atoll that he decided that this was the place where he would like to live.

In October 1952, the Nile had the opportunity to charter a ship, which was supposed to pass near Suvorov, in order to land on the atoll, which remained uninhabited after the end of the war. The ship dropped him off with two cats and all the supplies he could buy on the small island of Anchorage, which is about a mile wide and several hundred feet long. After military observers who left the atoll after the end of the war, a hut with water tanks, several books, and a badly damaged boat remained on the island. Observers also left pigs and chickens that had run wild before the arrival of Tom Neal. Pigs became a real nightmare for Tom, because they destroyed the vegetation on the island, which made it impossible to grow vegetables in the garden. Neil ambushed a tree and within a few months killed all the pigs. After that, he planted a garden, domesticated chickens and repaired the boat. Its main diet was fish, crabs, chicken, eggs, papaya, coconuts and breadfruit.

Ten months after arriving on the Nile island, the first guests visited: two couples sailed on a yacht. They were notified in advance of the presence of Nile on Suvorov by the British consul in Tahiti, who asked them to visit Tom. They lingered on the island for a couple of days. These visitors contributed to the birth of a new plan at Tom Neal: it is necessary to restore the pier, which was built on Anchorage during World War II, but was destroyed during a hurricane in 1942. To implement this idea, he needed six months of daily hard work. The day after the quay was completed, a strong storm hit the island, which destroyed Tom's work.

In May 1954, Neal injured his back, unsuccessfully anchoring his boat. He hardly returned to his hut, which was on the opposite side of the atoll, and lay there half-paralyzed for four days. On the fourth day, two American yachtsmen sailed to the atoll. They did not know about being on the island of Tom Nile, but found him in a hut, and provided medical assistance. They reported the incident to the Cook Islands government, which sent a ship to pick up Tom from Suvorov.

Tom Neal wanted to return to the island, immediately after his back was completely healed, but the government did not want this and was not ready to take responsibility for Tom's life. Neil married Sarah Haua on June 15, 1956. They had two children: Arthur and Stella.

In April 1960, Tom was able to return to the atoll. This time he had larger and more carefully selected (taking into account his previous experience) reserves. During this stay, Nile visited a helicopter from a passing U.S. warship. The British author Noel Barber learned about the life of the Nile on the island from a report by the US Navy and also visited it. Fourteen months later, the government sent the ship to Suvorov’s Atoll to check the rumor that the Nile was dead (supposedly Japanese fishermen pinned to the island and found a lifeless corpse there). A few months later the island was visited by a yacht, with her family on board. At night, a flurry raged in the lagoon, and the yacht sank. The family (husband, wife and daughter) lived with Neil until they were picked up by a passing ship, which they signaled with a pocket mirror.

In January 1964, after three and a half years on the island, the Nile voluntarily returned to Rarotonga. This decision was caused by the appearance of a group of local divers on Suvorov. Tom Neal realized that it was becoming increasingly difficult for him to bear their presence on the island.

On Rarotonga, Tom wrote his autobiography, Island for Myself, which quickly became a bestseller. In the book, Neil talks about life on Suvorov during his first and second stays on the atoll. Money from the sale of the book allowed Neal to make a large supply of provisions for the next trip to the island.

In the absence of the Nile, many people visited or temporarily settled on the island. In June 1964, von Donop, a former accountant from Honolulu, lived for a week in Tom’s hut on the island. At this time, the crew of his schooner "Europe" remained on board the ship in the lagoon. In the years 1965-66, Michael Swift lived alone on the Suvorov Atoll, but he was not familiar with the methods of survival and could hardly find enough food.

Neil returned to the atoll in June 1967. He remained there until 1977, when he contracted stomach cancer and was delivered to Rarotong by boat. He underwent treatment with Milan Brych, but the treatment did not have the desired effect, and Tom Neal died eight months later. His grave is located at the RSA cemetery on Rarotonga, opposite the airport.

• Tom Neil and Suvorov Atoll