Eileen Naseby

Eileen Naseby (born 4 Jan 1943 - died 22 Feb 2024) is the Australian author of Ursula, A Voyage of Love and Drama, a biography of her mother. The book tells the story of Ursula and her mother's escape from the Nazi regime, her closeted upbringing in Palestine, her love affair with the adventurer and writer Laurens van der Post, and her eventual emigration to Australia with Eileen and her two children Diana and Charmian to her new husband Nigel. Ursula and Nigel eventually converted from Judaism to the Baháʼí Faith.

Eileen Naseby was born in Haifa, Israel (then Palestine). Her biological father was Tony Piercy, a member of the Palestinian Mounted Police, and her mother was Ursula Singer. Tony & Ursula separated when Eileen was a toddler and Ursula befriended Nigel Charles Hall, who was also a member of the Palestinian Mounted Police. Eileen and her mother sailed to England in 1945 near the end of the 2nd World War, where they were re-united with Nigel in London. Ursula and Nigel married in 1947. There was a housing shortage due to the Blitz, Ursula and Nigel could only get a room where children were not allowed so Eileen was placed temporarily in a children’s home in the care of nuns until Eileen was almost 4. In 1952, when Eileen is about 9 years old, the family migrated to Australia. They soon moved to a remote dairy farm on the Darling Downs in Queensland, Australia. This is where Eileen's other siblings Stephen, Naomi and Michael were born.

Eileen was always drawn to books and drama. She was dux of school where she excelled at English and creative writing. She often entered her poems into newspaper competitions which resulted in being published at a very young age. Eileen was a member of Brisbane Young People’s Theatre and went on to be a member of the Nambour Amateur Theatrical Society. As a young adult she was a cadet for the Brisbane Courier Mail newspaper, and produced/directed a television show on Brisbane’s Channel 7, even playing one of the major roles on opening night when one of the cast became ill.

Eileen met painter David Naseby in Brisbane in 1965, they moved to Sydney and were married in 1966. They raised four children - Suzanne, Peter, Nigel and Toby. In the mid 70's Eileen obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree at Macquarie University, majoring in politics and history. In 1986 Eileen established Film World which quickly became Australia's leading stock footage archival film library. Eileen and her team developed a computerised database of all the collections Film World represented including the historic Cinesound and Movietone News collection, cataloguing, transferring and preserving these priceless records of significant events in Australian social, cultural and political history. This process made these films available to producers and filmmakers in a format that was readily available and easily accessible. The Cinesound Movietone Australian Newsreel Collection is now held at the National Film and Sound Archives (NFSA).

Eileen worked closely with Murdoch Books in the production of the Australian Memories series of photographic books, showcasing images from Film World's Cinesound Movietone Archive. Australian Memories In Black And White was published in 2004. This close working relationship with Murdoch Books led Eileen to step back in 2001 from the day-to-day running of Film World to focus on writing. In 2006 Ursula, A Voyage of Love and Drama was published. During the process of writing this book Eileen was struck down with breast cancer. Undaunted Eileen continued working on her book from her hospital bed, juggling its completion and eventual book launch event with radiotherapy treatment. Looking back at this time Eileen believes that healing her relationship with her mother through the writing of this book was a significant healing factor in her recovery from cancer and remaining in remission.

Eileen went on to receive several fellowships to Varuna, The Writers' House in the Blue Mountains of NSW. After her book Ursula was published, Eileen contributed her short story Looking For Love to the book Grandma Magic: True stories by and about grandmothers by Janet Hutchison. Eileen began two fiction books but she tragically developed dementia and was unable to complete them before her death.