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.

How To Get Noticed At The Age Of 10.

I guess that was my first taste of success.

I was just a school kid in Grade Five.

What started as an innocent gesture turned into getting me noticed for the rest of my school life.

And beyond.

And my secret?

Used stamps.

Postage stamps off envelopes.

In those days they could have value as cancelled postage stamps.

Not any more.

Many years ago they were collected by the Save The Children Fund and resold as ‘Mission Stamps’.

The packets of used postage stamps were like a mystery bag where you’d never know what you might find.

Ahh, the good old days.

Those mystery bags were, allegedly, unsorted, and a mixture of countries and values.

Who knows what treasure one might find.

The proceeds would be added to the charity funds that, even today, help the care and suffering of innocent children around the world.

Orphaned, injured in war, suffering disease, malnourished.

Still the case, of course, and still my favoured charity.

I was collecting these used stamps from my friends and neighbours when I decided to ask the Class of Year Five at the East Ivanhoe Primary School in Melbourne, Australia, if they would also save their used stamps for me.

My teacher found out.

She got behind me.

And asked me to start a Stamp Club in activities time every week.

So suddenly the whole school knew.

I had my own school Stamp Club.

Without even trying.

My Stamp Club attracted the attention of the Principal.

Which is how, without even trying, I got noticed in Year Five.

The moral of the story is, a small act of kindness and compassion can lead to greater things.

Which it did.

In my school career.

And beyond.

I’ll tell you how next time.

To follow my unpredictable life experience stories follow my blog (scroll down to find Follow window) –

Neil

PS, You can enjoy my life stories in my two autobiographical books here –

Romancing Your Life & Changing the World

The Great Regency Cover-Up

The Adventure Is Written In Everyone’s Destiny. Go Find Yours.

It’s the hidden treasure hinted at in so many great stories.

And you have the treasure map.

Now go find it.

You don’t need to travel or go anywhere to have the adventure.

It’s waiting for you.

Just go with the flow and it will come to you.

As it did for me.

I’m a writer.

My first job was as an advertising copywriter with one of the most creative ad agencies in the world.

Yet I never left my home city – Melbourne.

I started my writing career with a blast.

Because I was in the right place at the right time.

By co-incidence?

Or serendipity?

I’ve written the book about it.

And three others.

About having adventures without looking for them.

The thing is, we’re all at just the right place at the right time.

It’s called serendipity.

Try it.

You can buy the full set of FOUR AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL BOOKS now.

Read how I went through an 80 year old life always following what called me.

And, hey, I have survived.

I’ve lived a life full of ups and downs, twists and turns, successes and failures.

By going nowhere.

Buy my full set of 4 autobiographical books –

‘WHAT THEY DIDN’T TELL US ABOUT LIFE’ (104 pages)

‘THE STORY OF FAIRY HILLS & EAGLE MOUNTAIN’ (55 pages0

‘MY SEARCH FOR TRUTH IN THE BIG CITY’ (45 pages)

‘THE GREAT REGENCY COVER-UP’ (236 pages)

Place your order here.

I hope you enjoy the journey.

Love and Peace.

Neil

How To Live An Extraordinary Life By Staying Home.

I was going nowhere.

I was flat broke.

I thought my life as I knew it was over.

I had the adventure anyhow.

You should do the same.

You don’t need to travel or go anywhere to have the adventure.

It’s waiting for you.

Just go with the flow and it will come to you.

As it did for me.

I’m a writer.

My first job was as an advertising copywriter with one of the most creative ad agencies in the world.

Yet I never left my home city – Melbourne.

I started my writing career with a blast.

Because I was in the right place at the right time.

By co-incidence?

Or serendipity?

I’ve written the book about it.

And three others.

About having adventures without looking for them.

The thing is, we’re all at just the right place at the right time.

It’s called serendipity.

Try it.

You can buy the full set of FOUR AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL BOOKS now.

Read how I went through an 80 year old life always following what called me.

And, hey, I have survived.

I’ve lived a life full of ups and downs, twists and turns, successes and failures.

By going nowhere.

Buy my full set of 4 autobiographical books –

‘ROMANCING YOUR LIFE AND CHANGING THE WORLD’ (104 pages)

‘THE STORY OF FAIRY HILLS & EAGLE MOUNTAIN’ (55 pages0

‘MY SEARCH FOR TRUTH IN THE BIG CITY’ (45 pages)

‘THE GREAT REGENCY COVER-UP’ (236 pages)

Place your order here.

I hope you enjoy the journey.

Love and Peace.

Neil

Illustration by Deviantart.com.

What They Didn’t Tell Us About Life.

It’s how I came to search for ethical Truth and look what I found.

It’s in my new 104 page book.

In what seems a lifetime ago a chance meeting with a Librarian who became a close friend opened a door that I found I couldn’t resist.

Was there more to life than meets the eye?

So began my own lifelong search I tell the story of my meeting with the Librarian in the first chapter of this book.

The following 17 chapters tell of unusual personal experiences that followed that reveal my quest to find it.

As if I had opened the door to the answers I was seeking.

Although I didn’t know it.

A second evolution.

Parallel lives.

The secret of Destiny.

What our soul can tell us.

The unknown cause of climate change.

The ethical nature-affirming culture that’s already changing the planet for good.

How we can change the world ourselves.

All in easy-to-read bite-size chapters you can digest quickly.

ABOUT ME.

I’m an ex advertising copywriter who worked for some of the hottest ad agencies in Melbourne.

Today I’m an author living across the bay from the big city.

Buy your copy here.

Do you like romance, history and the paranormal.

They’re all here in my other new non-fiction book ‘The Great Regency Cover-Up’.

Read more HERE.

Best wishes.

Neil.

I’ve written the secrets of life for you in this small 104 page book

Change your life and change the world.

We can do it ourselves.

Ethically.

We can support the environment that supports us, respect the land we live on and use it for good, have reverence for Nature including other human beings and figure out who we are and why we’re here.

Is the answer hidden in my life experiences and my search for Truth?

I was involved in many life-affirming nature-conscious ethical issues that would change our future.

What if my chance experiences are a snapshot to making this a better world?

On the cover of this book is where I live today, a quiet fishing village and holiday resort across the bay from Melbourne called Portarlington, .

Every year the town is host to Australia’s Celtic Festival and Mussel Festival.

I’ve learned much over an eventful lifetime, some of which I wish to share with you now.

I’ve had many adventures, physical, mental, metaphysical, travelling, the joy of having two beautiful daughters and three adorable granddaughters, the struggle after bankruptcy, surviving the blow of a spinal stenosis followed by the devastation of a stroke, finding a new life with my mind intact. In my travels.

I’ve met, lived with and mixed with psychics, channels and healers around the world.

I’ve studied all spiritual philosophies from mainstream religions to the Aboriginal Dreaming.

Now I wish to share with you some important philosophical and metaphysical ideas I’ve developed over a lifetime.

Who are we?

Why are we here?

What secrets does our soul have to tell us?

How are we to survive?

How are we to live?

Order your copy of my precious 104 page info filled book that reveals life’s true down-to-earth mysteries HERE.

Love and Peace.

Neil.

I Didn’t See This Coming.

Just when I was down-and-out, when my freelance copywriting business of 10 years had hit the skids, I went bankrupt.

Strange things started to happen.

What was going on?

You’d think I had started a new life without intending to.

New things, new ideas, new open doors were rushing towards me.

Which is where my story begins.

Right here.

My first thought was survival.

I needed a place to live.

Cheap.

I had nothing.

I’d been offered a small Victorian holiday flat in a quiet springs resort in the Wombat Forest about one and a half hours from Melbourne.

I packed all my stuff into my car and went to the Central Highlands.

My life, as I knew it, was over.

I arrived with nothing, to nothing, with nothing to do.

Soon I was offered an old caravan for almost nothing.

I moved in and lived there for the next 5 years.

Parked precariously outside my benefactor’s home in the hills I could relax at last.

He created evocative airbrush paintings under the house.

She was a devoted follower of Sai Baba, her Indian Hindu guru.

An interesting couple.

We had many inspiring conversations.

The kind of mental and spiritual stimulus I’d been missing in the corporate world.

It was my new life among the sweet smells of Nature and the soothing sounds of the birds and the waterfall outside the caravan.

I felt at home there to ponder my fate and, well, to recover from the stresses of the past.

Then something happened that woke me from my reflective mood.

A file of documents about an historical mystery fell into my lap.

There was a friendly ghost from the past.

I’d been given, very mysteriously, a new challenge and my mind was off again.

And that mysterious file was the start of a new adventure that had my mind racing in a whole new direction I had not anticipated.

No way.

Which is where the intriguing material from the mystery file grabbed my attention.

Which soon became the focus of a new and amazing true story.

A 250-page book, a true story.

I’ve given my book a knockout title.

A very different title for a very different kind of book.

Of survival without money.

Of the paranormal.

And of the romantic.

Of a hushed up secret from the early days of British exploration around Australia and New Zealand.

One reviewer calls it “fun and entertaining”.

It’s an exciting story that took me to the other side of the planet chasing clues to a true historical romantic mystery across 5 countries.

I’ll tell you more next time.

Watch for my next post or follow me at aussiescribe.com.

Love and Peace,

Neil

I Went to Yoga Classes at a Hindu Yoga Ashram in Australia.

I was living alone in a caravan in Central Victoria, Australia.

A group of us went off once a week to a Hindu Ashram in the middle of nowhere for yoga nidra lessons.

And a very memorable time.

I was living in a caravan in Central Victoria.

A friend was a member of the nearby Rocklyn Yoga Ashram.

The ashram was located in a peaceful retreat centre in the heart of the Wombat Forest.

I’d already learned chakra yoga with Australia’s first full time yoga teacher.

Margrit Segesman taught me a form of yoga that I practiced daily for over 50 years.

There were 10 asanas or positions based on balancing the 7 major chakras.

I believe they kept me healthy and physically and mentally well for most of my life.

You should think about learning chakra yoga too.

No matter what your age.

I was 24.

Both yoga and chakra balancing are beneficial in so many ways.

And yoga is relaxing for starters.

Margrit Segesman’s interest in breathing and relaxation techniques branched into an interest in the expansion of consciousness, a subject she had discussed with Carl Jung when they met in the 1920s.

He suggested the study of yoga and yogic philosophy and reading The Science of Breath by Yogi Ramacharaka.

As well as studying philosophy, she developed her own progressive yoga relaxation technique that she later incorporated into her classes.

After spending time in Indian ashrams, she found her guru at Rishikesh on the Tibetan border and spent about five years living in a cave as an ascetic:

“For years I knew nothing else but meditation, raja yoga, hatha yoga, the intense practices of kriya and tantra, [and the] study of cosmology and evolution,” she later wrote.”

When she set up her school, she found Melbournians were keen to embrace yoga which was still considered to be very ‘new and exotic’ for Australia.

However, following a radio interview about her relaxation technique, Margrit was inundated with students and so took the step to full-time teaching.

When she embarked on her voyage from Switzerland in 1954, Margrit planned to travel to Sydney, but mistakenly stepped off the boat in Melbourne instead.

The Gita School of Yoga was Australia’s first full-time yoga school with its own permanent premises, offering classes each week day and night.

I remember having to step carefully along a narrow pebbled path to arrive at the front door – beginning class with a walking meditation.

A class then consisted of limbering, ten basic yoga asanas with many variations, breathing practices and relaxation.

On 22 September 1960 the Gita School of Yoga opened at 21 Alfred Place, Melbourne, which ran alongside St Paul’s Cathedral.

Soon after I was there as one of her early students.

Be well and healthy.

Neil

PS. Click here for the Rocklyn Yoga Ashram’s website.

Discover my new book of my real recent New Age adventures here in ‘Man Steps Off Planet’.

Little Things Mean a Lot

Mr Moloney was feared by all of us.

He’d stand on a rise in front of the shelter shed every morning before nine o’clock assembly awaiting his prey.

Late school kids.

In his hands he would usually brandish his weapon the feel of which across our bare outstretched hands we would dread.

The ‘cuts’.

That was our favourite name for the leather strap as it bore down upon our outstretched hand.

Once we’d passed the start of morning assembly and if we were late, watch out.

We were in for it.

Once across the outstretched hand was enough.

A high price to pay for being a few minutes late, I thought.

I never got the strap but I did once in class and it hurt all day and the next.

Of course no school teacher today could do that.

I’m talking about wartime, the end of WWII.

I had a friend who’d always ask me questions in class.

Once in geography class he turned to me to ask a question just at the moment the teacher turned around and caught us.

We were both hauled out of our desks to stand in front of the class, hands outstretched. awaiting the agony of the strap to descend upon us.

It was the only time but enough to taste how it felt.

I made sure I was never late.

I met my next fearful Principal when I was transferred at the start of my third year.

I followed my brother to a different school nearby when he wasn’t able to enrol at my school.

This was a fateful move.

For the better.

He was another hat wearing Principal to be feared, but this time because of his tongue.

Not an instrument of punishment.

But in a kindly way.

He was fair but feared.

With the same name as the American President John F Kennedy he ruled the school like a true president.

The school would later boast having a student named Cate Blanchett the movie actress.

I never met her.

I first got noticed by Mr Kennedy when I started collecting used stamps for charity.

We started a stamp club and I collected them from all the kids.

Little things.

All due to the stamp club, in Year Six I was chosen by him to take on the school’s electronic system, the music, the school bell, everything needed to run the school and its timetable.

I enjoyed that.

I can’t forget being hauled over the coals for my bad choice of marching music for the girls’ marching squad practice.

I mean, I can only hear Colonal Bogey played so many times and I took it upon myself to change the tune after so many times over.

I fell in love with march composer John Phillip Sousa and his marches.

They’re like mini symphonies.

Every year swallows nested under the eaves of the wash house in the backyard.

Come Monday my mother would tackle the pile of clothes gathering all week on the floor before boiling them in the copper she heated with kindling wood.

There were no washing machines then.

Washing clothes was done by hand which is why this became her Monday morning routine.

And around Year 4 I fell in love with a tiny seaside town called Point Lonsdale at the Heads to the city of Melbourne dominated by an imposing lighthouse.

I fell in love with lighthouses.

Little things.

Every winter, thanks to the blessing of my champion School Principal, and the kindness of a neighbour returning a favour, me and my family would head for Point Lonsdale for a free two week holiday at an old house with a bull-nosed verandah.

I’d go to sleep every night to the sound of roaring waves breaking on the beach.

Wild nature came to mean a lot then when I was just an impressionable school kid looking for small adventures which remained with me all my life.

I fell in love with Point Lonsdale where I returned to the area many years later to live with my daughters and grand-daughters.

Every year as we drove out to return home I left my heart behind in this magical town beneath the lighthouse.

A little thing at the time that turned out to be the biggest thing in my later life.

Which is where I live now.

Watch out for the little things.

Take care,

Neil

Visit my Author Page

How a Ghost From The Past Led Me To Investigate a True Royal Mystery.

I didn’t see it coming.

“I always thought it strange my Granny Fitz never ate at the dinner table,” Florence told me, “You see, she was dead.”

Seems that Florence’s dear childhood friend Granny Fitz was probably a ghost.

What do you think?

I’d called in to visit my mother on my way home from the city late one afternoon when I l lived in Melbourne and worked from home as a freelance advertising copywriter.

I thought I was making a social visit to learn the latest gossip about the family but I was in for a shock.

As Florence greeted me at the door, eyes watering and cheeks flushed, she looked like she’d seen a ghost.

I think she had.

She’d been researching the family tree.

So when she came to check the birth and death details of her childhood companion at the Melbourne Cemetery she got rather more than she expected.

According to the information on the gravestone her Granny Fitz had died seventeen years before Florence was born.

Interesting.

What royal secret did Granny Fitz bring beyond the grave with her?

Where did my investigations lead, what major historical characters were revealed from this simple fact?

And what unexpected historical territory did I enter when I started to follow the trail that Granny, or Mrs Fitz, left for me?

Read this amazing mystery for your self in my book ‘Man Steps Off Planet’.

Best wishes,

Neil

PS. Illustrated above is the present day replica of the historic tall ship ‘HMS Lady Nelson’ of which one of our characters was Acting Commander.

Is Life A Quest To Find Peace Amongst The Noise?

At the age of 11 I started high school which was located on a noisy main road with clattering trams passing every few minutes ding, ding, dinging their bells. In those first few weeks I thought I would go crazy with the traffic noise outside.

After a while I forgot the noise and began to pay attention to my teachers instead of the trams.

Was this a metaphor for life?

All my life I’ve sought the solitude of being alone, searching for peace, whether among Nature or in the midst of family, work or just life.

I’ve owned a country cottage where I would find my peace and worked in offices in the heart of the big city of Melbourne.

In the end, finally, I can say I can find peace wherever I happen to be.

So I’m wondering if this is the point of being alive on this planet, the purpose of life if you like.

To find our peace among the clatter, the ding, ding, dinging going on outside our head.

I’m wondering if we need to be more tolerant of the noise around us instead of reacting to it, as I have done for most of my life.

Could this be the secret of overcoming stress and anxiety which have become so prevalent in our society today.

Deal with it, yes, but reacting to it, I’m not so sure.

I can say this because I am the greatest offender in overreacting to the noise and disharmony around me.

So I can speak from experience.

Didn’t the Buddha talk about first learning to “chop wood, cart water”?

Is this what he meant?

I’m working on it.

I hope that my experience can benefit you too.

Best wishes,

Neil

To read about my book ‘What They Didn’t Tell Us About Life’ click here.

To follow my blog scroll down and click the Follow button.

To read this post in your browser click here.

I’ve Done Some Crazy Things In My Life.

I’ve swum at the nude beach on Fire Island off Long Island, New York, with a cute school teacher from New Jersey.

I’ve been to the Statue of Liberty.

I’ve known the delight of floating down the Grand Canal in Venice in a water taxi with an Italian nurse with the voice of Sophia Loren.

I helped to launch Animal Liberation here in Australia.

I was the first member of the Permaculture Association started in the 1970s by two academics from a Tasmanian (Australia) university.

It’s become a world phenomenon in the race to save the planet helping individuals and communities introduce a sustainable agriculture into their lives.

I was kicked off a commune a group of us started on 40 acres of land north of Melbourne in the 1970s for opposing questionable practices that would turn it into a religious sect.

I’ve sat with channels who’ve had books published of their words (for example, ‘Earth to Tao’ and ‘Tao to Earth’).

An article I wrote for a local newspaper about the Swiss-Italian gold miners who came to the Central Highlands goldfields in the 1850s was the inspiration for the annual ‘Hepburn Springs Swiss-Italian Festa’.

For a while I ran ‘The Springs Whole Health Group’ with monthly speakers on subjects ranging from hypnotherapy and reflexology to water divining and ley lines relating to health.

I’ve lived in a caravan parked by the roadside in a small country town in the Aussie bush where I became lovingly known as King of the Hippies.

On the side of a hill near a lake in the north of Italy I enjoyed an outdoor family feast of Italian food and wine served beneath a canopy of vines in a magical setting resembling a movie set.

I’ve run my own one-man freelance advertising copywriting business for over 10 years in Melbourne.

My first big ad presentation was at a week long client conference on the steamy tropical South Pacific island of Fiji.

How did I survive being left homeless, penniless, jobless and friendless when my business and I were declared bankrupt and I lost everything?

Before all of that I worked at the Melbourne office of the second largest ad agency in the world now known as McCann’s.

A campaign I created, wrote and produce for meat pies and donuts won an award at the annual National Television Society Awards in 1972.

I had a fairytale reunion with my 21 year-old daughter living on the famous Gold Coast of Australia.

I’ve been twice married, have 2 grown daughters and 3 adorable granddaughters.

I live now in a beautiful seaside resort town across the bay from the city of Melbourne where the Annual Mussel Festival and Annual National Celtic Festivals are held.

I’ve authored 4 books (not novels).

“Either write something worth reading,” wrote famous American author Ernest Hemingway, “or do something worth writing.”

I reckon that’s what I’ve done in my crazy life.

To receive future blog posts click the Follow button below.

Best wishes.

Neil

A Ghost. A Ship. A Mystery. A True Story.

The ghost was a granny who was not what she seemed.

The ship was the ‘Lady Nelson’, one of the Tall Ships whose replica is currently sailing the Seven Seas.

The mystery fell into my lap when my life had crashed and burned and I set out to follow the clues left to me and solve the mystery.

But did I?

It’s a true story that throws light onto a possible legitimate son of King George IV some 200 years ago.

Was the Commander of the ‘Lady Nelson’ him?

That is the question I set out to discover.

Is it him?

If so, and if he was really the legitimate son of George IV, then was he destined for the throne of England instead of Queen Victoria had his identity been known?

The secret of granny’s ghost was a single but significant clue and it has been hidden for 100 years.

It was there for all to see, and to miss.

Only when 3 other clues came to light for the first time did this central clue make sense.

What’s more incredible is that these 3 clues were held by 3 different people who knew nothing of the other 2 clues.

Indeed they had no idea it was a clue to anything.

Then all was revealed when granny’s secret was discovered at her grave in a Melbourne cemetery.

She had died 17 years before she was very much alive being a granny.

Either you’re dead or alive, not both.

Not Granny Fitz.

She was both at the same time.

In saying that I’ve given you her significant big clue.

I reveal all in my book and invite you to share my adventure with me as the mystery unfolds as I chase the clues, and find more, across 5 countries.

New York.

Regency England.

New Zealand.

Northern Italy.

And of course, my home country, Australia.

Best wishes,

Neil
aussiescribe

Order Book Here.

Follow Blog Here.

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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