Urban Nomad. Who is the Smith?

I am the Smith.

I am the author.

Why ‘the Smith’?

The smiths were the crafters, the metal smiths, the blacksmiths, the makers of Medieval Britain a thousand years ago.

I am the wordsmith.

I’ve written and self-published 8 autobiographical books.

Click or tap the image above to see.

This smith has lived everywhere.

Over 50 dwellings have been my home.

An ancient aboriginal corroboree ground in a wilderness area known as Fairy Hills where the creek met the river was my first memory of life.

And only a few kilometres from the Melbourne CBD.

I’ve just learned they’ve been digging up ancient aboriginal artifacts that suggest this.

I’ve lived with psychics and healers.

And sat with mediums or channels.

I’ve lived with a Reiki Master in New York.

With a Roman Catholic nurse in the north of Italy.

With a Buddhist in the UK.

My lawyer was an Atheist.

I didn’t live with him.

I ran my own freelance copywriting business. in the ’70s

In 1972 I won an award for the best television campaign of the year for a brand of meat pies and donuts.

I was a New Age hippie.

We knew about climate change 50 years ago.

A group of us started a commune on 40 acres north of Melbourne to become self-sufficient and live off the grid.

A year later we’d failed.

I helped launch Animal Liberation here.

Our patron was Peter Singer, who was then Professor of Bioethics at Harvard., and wrote the book ‘Animal Liberation’.

45 years later it’s still active today.

I was the first member of the Permaculture Association.

Which, started by two Tasmanian academics in the late ’70s, today is changing the world

Now there are over one million people certified in Permaculture in over 140 countries with more than 4,000 projects on the ground.

I went bankrupt.

An article I researched and wrote 35 years ago – about the Swiss and Italian gold miners who came to Australia in the 1850s – triggered the launch of a Swiss-Italian Festa which is still running every year today in a local spa resort town.

Their story is in my book here.

I ran a social group called ‘The Springs Whole Health Group’.

We never ran out of guest speakers on healing topics, from ley lines to chemical sensitivity, who I’d enjoy interviewing every month before our next meeting.

Then I would write an article for the local paper which they always published on page 3 or 5.

This while living frugally in an old caravan parked at the end of a street in the spa resort town.

Over 5 years I became known as the man in the van.

I studied many spiritual philosophies.

I studied Religious Experience as an off campus mature age student at Uni –

The Christian Mystics

The Hindu Bhagavad-Gita.

Australian Aboriginal Dreaning.

I practiced Yoga for 50 years from wherever I called home.

Briefly I joined the Theosophical Society in Melbourne, with headquarters in Adyar, India, with the motto ‘There is no religion higher than Truth’.

I met and befriended the Librarian of the Melbourne branch, a Wise Woman, who taught me how and where and why to search for Truth.

What is Truth?

For a time I was married and today have the pleasure of a beautiful family of 2 lovely daughters, 3 adorable granddaughters and 2 mischievous great grandsons.

I’m truly blessed

Visit my 8 fun and entertaining autobiographical books on my Author Page here.

You can find more of my adventures in my autobiographical books.

Namaste.

Neil the Smith (author)

PS. I recommend – ‘Our Thoughts Can Change The World’ (104 pages) and The Great Regency Cover-Up’ (236 pages). Buy both now and pay less P&P.

Urban Nomad: The Life of Author Neil the Smith

Why ‘the Smith’?

They were the creators, the crafters, the metal smiths, the makers of Medieval Britain a thousand years ago.

Today, I’m ‘the wordsmith’.

The author.

I’ve lived everywhere..

Over 50 places have been my home.

An ancient aboriginal corroboree ground in a wilderness area known as Fairy Hills where the creek met the river was my first memory of life.

And only a few kilometres from the Melbourne CBD.

I’ve just learned they’ve been digging up ancient aboriginal artifacts that suggest this.

I’ve lived with psychics and healers.

And sat with mediums or channels.

I’ve lived with a Reiki Master in New York.

With a Roman Catholic nurse in the north of Italy.

With a Buddhist in the UK.

My lawyer was an Atheist.

I didn’t live with him.

I ran my own freelance copywriting business. in the ’70s

In 1972 I won an award for the best television campaign of the year for a brand of meat pies and donuts.

I was a New Age hippie.

We knew about climate change 50 years ago.

A group of us started a commune on 40 acres north of Melbourne to become self-sufficient and live off the grid.

A year later we’d failed.

I helped launch Animal Liberation here.

Our patron was Peter Singer, who was then Professor of Bioethics at Harvard., and wrote the book ‘Animal Liberation’.

45 years later it’s still active today.

I was the first member of the Permaculture Association.

Which, started by two Tasmanian academics in the late ’70s, today is changing the world

Now there are over one million people certified in Permaculture in over 140 countries with more than 4,000 projects on the ground.

I went bankrupt.

An article I researched and wrote 35 years ago – about the Swiss and Italian gold miners who came to Australia in the 1850s – triggered the launch of a Swiss-Italian Festa which is still running every year today in a local spa resort town.

Their story is in my book here.

I ran a social group called ‘The Springs Whole Health Group’.

We never ran out of guest speakers on healing topics, from ley lines to chemical sensitivity, who I’d enjoy interviewing every month before our next meeting.

Then I would write an article for the local paper which they always published on page 3 or 5.

This while living frugally in an old caravan parked at the end of a street in the spa resort town.

Over 5 years I became known as the man in the van.

I studied many spiritual philosophies.

I studied Religious Experience as an off campus mature age student at Uni –

The Christian Mystics

The Hindu Bhagavad-Gita.

Australian Aboriginal Dreaning.

I practiced Yoga for 50 years from wherever I called home.

Briefly I joined the Theosophical Society in Melbourne, with headquarters in Adyar, India, with the motto ‘There is no religion higher than Truth’.

I met and befriended the Librarian of the Melbourne branch, a Wise Woman, who taught me how and where and why to search for Truth.

What is Truth?

For a time I was married and today have the pleasure of a beautiful family of 2 lovely daughters, 3 adorable granddaughters and 2 mischievous great grandsons.

I’m truly blessed

Visit my 8 fun and entertaining autobiographical books on my Author Page here.

You can find more of my adventures in my autobiographical books.

Namaste.

Neil the Smith (author)

PS. I recommend – ‘Our Thoughts Can Change The World’ (104 pages) and The Great Regency Cover-Up’ (236 pages). Buy both now and save on postage.

My Huckleberry Finn Life & the Aboriginal Wurundjeri People.

Back when I was one, going on two, we moved house to a new part of town that set a pattern for the rest of my life.

Change.

From a small single fronted house in an inner Melbourne suburb, considered in those days to be a slum (today being remodelled as trendy town houses selling for big bucks), we moved a bit further out to a Californian bungalow house in a wilderness area where the Darebin Creek met the Yarra River, known as Fairy Hills with street names like Elfin Street and Fairy Street.

Incredibly, this was also suburbia and still only a short distance from the heart of the CBD.

Footbridge over a billabong beside the creek

At the same time every year, I was told, a certain rare bird flew from Japan to the Darebin Creek wilderness, the only location outside Japan that this bird has ever been seen.

For 15 years my favourite pastime was to sit by the creek, like Huck Finn, in the peace of Nature gazing into the clear water rippling over rocky beds and walking alone along the rough bush tracks.

They were my first lessons in life learned living close to Nature and the ancient unspoiled wilderness land of the aborigine. For tens of thousands of years it was used as a food and tool source sustainably by the Wurundjeri people.

And then leaving that natural environment in my mid teens to live in a government housing estate of rows of little boxes was a bit of a shock.

I had imagined the rest of the world was like Fairy Hills and I slowly came to realise that it wasn’t.

Big lesson.

Big shock.

(More next time.)

Neil
aussiescribe

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A book of true stories that’s not a book of true stories

How many books have you read that could claim to fit no less than 10 of Amazon’s 33 book categories?

This one can.

It’s really one big fun true mystery adventure story that contains many smaller stories about real people.

But essentially it’s one big story, as Writer’s Digest* said, “You have discerned an amazing story.”

There’s the story of an unsung hero, a British naval lieutenant who played a major role in the early British settlement of southern Australia and New Zealand, the story of Australia’s only military coup, the heartwarming story of a British sailor who fell in love with a New Zealand Maori Chief’s daughter, the story of my own survival after bankruptcy, my own romantic story living for 6 months in New York with a beautiful school teacher, the discovery that a granny was really a ghost with a message, the story of a ‘Wild White Man’ who lived for 30 years with an aboriginal tribe as their Chief (illustrated above), my story of living with an Italian nurse for 4 months in romantic Italy, and many more.

Again, Writer’s Digest* claimed, “It’s got everything it needs to be a blockbuster, romance, history, the paranormal, and the story of a narrator finding his way in the world. Big stories like this are difficult to tell.”

So ‘Back to the Wall’ is one big important true story while, at the same time, it’s many small cameos of real people living extraordinary personal stories.

In the end it’s a true mystery with a big ending.

To read more visit the Home Page of this website or go to my Author Page to order your copy right now.

Best wishes.

Neil

* Judge, Writer’s Digest 21st Annual Self-Published Book Awards.

PS. Order your copy HERE.