From plumber to globe-trotting adventurer, one man’s journey takes him from Australia to Madagascar and the Solomon Islands, where life-or-death moments, miracles, and the mysteries of the spirit world unfold. He evacuates a hospital under siege, survives two plane emergencies, feeds 12,000 after a cyclone, and even spends two nights among cannibals. But what he discovers on his final night at the hospital will leave you stunned.

Subscribe with your favorite podcast player

Welcome to this edition of Newsgram!

Have you ever had the feeling that you weren’t alone—even when you were?
I’m not talking about paranoia or shadows in the dark. I mean that quiet, undeniable sense that someone—or something—is watching over you. Maybe it’s God, a guardian angel, or the spirit of a loved one who’s passed on. Whatever name you give it, you know deep down: this moment is more than coincidence.

Let’s set the scene.

You’re alone, driving through the countryside of central New South Wales. The road stretches ahead as you make your way toward Junee. Everything seems ordinary—until it isn’t.

Ira Dawson – The car stops. To this day, I know I did not stop that car. And it really shook me to say, well, someone’s looking after me.

That’s just a glimpse of what you’ll find in Ira Dawson’s memoir, This Boy Will Never Make Old Bones. I love spotlighting authors that have unique stories to tell and I don’t think we’ve ever met one that lived a true action adventure like Ira Dawson. Here is how the book begins. 

Quote read by actor: “…About six kilometres out of the town, a pea-soup fog blanketed the
road. It was impossible to see any farther than one white line ahead
in the centre of the road, and that was only possible with my head
out the window. The road was familiar, as this was not my first time
to travel it. As I drove slowly along, it soon became apparent that Ishould have reached the town by now, but there was not a light in
sight.

For a reason that can’t be explained, I stopped the vehicle with
the idea of seeing where the road went to from here. Then out of the
fog came a bright light, and all was clear. The car had stopped just
four metres from a level crossing, and it was a goods train that was
rushing by with its whistle blowing. No doubt the driver was
thinking, That idiot! Why did he stop so close to the tracks?
The real reason was “that idiot” was well and truly lost, not even
on the right road, a road he had never travelled before. As the train
sped by, a cold sweat came over me, and my hair felt as if it were
standing up on end. What had made me stop-what was it? There was
no real reason to stop there. Feeling that someone had really looked
after me, I realized that, but for the grace of God, I would have been
killed, and perhaps He had a plan for my life. My heart was filled with
thankfulness to Him.

Shortly after this experience, my wife, Myra, and I took a nine month
around-the-world trip, which also contributed to changing
our life’s direction….”

That trip turned into a life-changing journey, full of moments you have to read to believe. Their experiences included being saved from death in Madagascar, evacuating a hospital on Solomon Island when it was held hostage by 250 armed warriors to visiting a remote location inhabited by Cannibals. Why? Well, because they invited him. 

Ira Dawson – They said, would you come and visit us up in our region? Well, everyone, the local people went bonkers. You’re not going up there. They’re cannibals. I’ll kill you and eat you. And I said, yeah, but they’re hungry.

So he went because he felt like he was being called to serve and maybe he was right because he received safe passage, through cannibal territory, funded by the Australian government and on the way there he got bit on the ear by something and thanks to his resourceful guide his life was saved.

Ira Dawson – So at any rate, he digs it out. Slashes it in two. Says here, put that on your ear. And rub your ear with the juice of that. Which I did. And as true as I sit here before you, within one minute, all my pain is gone. And I was stupid enough not to turn around and find out what it was.

The reviews for this book say it’s a book once you start you cannot put it down from the first page to the very last and I tend to agree. Ira’s life is one lived to the fullest his stories are full of intrigue as he traveled with his wife working on various islands and uncovering the mysteries found there. 

Ira Dawson – So it all started when we got married in 1957. We were married 66 years before she died of dementia. But that’s behind us. What happened in the stories? It started off, we did this world trip. And for a young couple in those days, it was a big trip. And we went by bus from Calcutta to London. That’s a long way by bus.

Yes it is. It is roughly 7,000 miles depending on your exact path through countries like Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, and Europe.

Ira Dawson – And we were 70 days on the trip. And we looked at this, we looked at that, you know, as you went through the different countries. My wife said, you know, some of these places are so poor. We ought to do something to help them. I said, come on, we’re not United Nations.

But that little nudge led him down a trail of experiences that you need to read about. Like the one where the Devilman, chief of the Cannibals tried to kill him, but in the end he become a very dear friend.

Ira Dawson – So I go down. In the river, I meet the devil’s head, Silas Nicker. Who, if I would have had somewhere to go to look at him, he was frightening. He was a real devil man. And I thought, there’s nowhere I can run to. And when he spoke, no one else spoke other than me.

Making friends with the Devilman was just one story but Ira has a ton of them. There was the time he negotiated for food  to feed 12,000 people in Malaita when a cyclone hit the Solomon Islands, two different airplane emergencies and the time he discovered a spice tree in Madagascar and harvested over twenty-one and half kilos of Cloves to help build a school there.

Ira Dawson – Cloves. One of the few countries that grow cloves. And they only yield every five years.

I think Ira Dawson has led a wonderful life because he did it in the service of others – and that is not always easy but as you can see, it’s very rewarding. He is now Eighty Nine years old. You can probably hear that in his voice but this is a man that was not expected to live past the age of ten. 

Ira Dawson – When I was four and a half years old, I developed an illness. It was wartime and it was very difficult to get doctors. The doctor we did get was not very familiar with what I had and misdiagnosed it. And then finally she said, look, we don’t know exactly what it is that he’s got, but this is Dawson. Don’t spend much money on him because he won’t live beyond 10 years old. And my mother thought, no, I’m not going to give away that easy. And so she just loved me. And here I am now, 89.

The power of love is very strong. 

Ira Dawson – My mother said I was never going to make old bones.

But she did her best—and now you see where the title came from — it’s   a fast-moving, real-life adventure that will keep you turning pages. It’s packed with near-death experiences, miracles, and moments that make you stop and ask: How did he survive that?

I like to think his mother was—and still is—watching over him.

This Boy Will Never Make Old Bones is a powerful reminder that sometimes, against all odds, we do.

It’s available now at Amazon.com or wherever you prefer to buy books online.

And that’ll do it for this edition of Newsgram from webtalkradio.com.

The post This Boy Will Never Make Old Bones by Ira Dawson appeared first on WebTalkRadio.net.