A Kingdom of Your Own

Every one of us on this planet is in his own right a prince or a princess, a king or a queen. How many of us have picked up our daughters and called her a princess, or our sons, and called them a prince, I’m sure we have all said to our children at some stage or the other "one day you will be a prince", I’m guilty of telling my daughter that she will always be a princess.

This story is about a man I met just very recently who lives this fairytale, and is called (legally) His Royal Highness Prince Leonard of the Hutt River Province.

The story starts at my home in Perth in Western Australia, where every few months I bundle the family into the 4x4, get a bunch of close friends together and head out to some obscure destination, far away from people, crowds and the modcons of what most people would call a relaxing holiday. Perth being the most isolated mainland city on the planet, its not hard to find such seclusion, this time we headed North to the big (by WA standards, very small by Indian standards) town of Kalbarri. Our convoy meandered its way dipping in and out of beach tracks just for the sheer pleasure of sliding and snaking along the pristine beaches we have here, there is something special about having a roaring ocean on your side where you have to duck and dive in between the waves as they crash on to the shore. You can stop where you like, have lunch where you like, swim, fish, snorkel or when you get a flat stretch put your pedal to the metal and sit on 130 kph on the sand... lovely, now that’s my kinda holiday.



Kalbarri is a lovely town approximately 600 Kms North of Perth on the banks of the Murchison river and we camped at the caravan park there, the gorges in Kalbarri are spectacular and walking through them lets you experience what the planet would have been like at the time that the dinosaurs walked the planet. The coastline has some amazing formations which the wind has sculptured over the years.

I was having a really good time here when one of the group decided that the next day we were going to visit the Hutt River Province.

"What", I said, "is that"?

I had never herd of it before, and when some one said it was a farming property in the middle of no where, I can tell you I was not interested at all. That evening over the camp fire we spoke about it and they told me that it was actually not a part of Australia, and that it was an independent and sovereign state. What a lot of rubbish I thought, this is going to be one day of my life wasted..... how wrong I was.

The next morning we all had a quick breakfast with me doing my favourite ’Mumlates’ (omelettes) that’s what they called it at the many Dhabas I stopped at as we drove around India rallying in the 70’s and early 80’s. And after the customary cuppa masala cha, we headed of for this crazy place called the Hutt River Province.

Its off the main road and you spend about 30 mins on the loose stuff, there is nothing you pass along the way, and I mean nothing, no people, houses, or cars, buses, shops, nothing. Then you come to a gate and it says ’Hutt River Province’. You enter it and about 100 metres up you come to a couple of buildings with a few signs, one says Post Office, the other says Govt. Building, and there is a Tea Room. Iin the distance there are a few farm sheds, a few tractors and a old Landrover, the type you would see in Darjeeling. Ahaa, I thought, something interesting for me to poke around in.

We parked our convoy under some shady trees. I was just about to suggest that we could now jump back into the 4x4’s and leave, when out of the corner of my eye I noticed an old lady walking over towards us, she had a little bit of a hunch and was dressed just as you would expect someone would at a farm, and she introduced herself to us. "Good morning all, I’m Princess Shirley".

My jaw dropped open and before I could speak, she said, "Prince Leonard Is waiting for all of you in the Cabinet room"...we all looked at each other and suddenly something came over me and I was excited, here in the middle of nowhere is a man who calls himself a Prince...this I gotta see.

I was conjuring up images of Prince Charles with his big ears, and a very Proppah English accent, and all the pomp that goes with it, but as we walked up to the government offices which was an old brick building with a fancy sign outside, an elderly man weather-beaten and dressed just like you would expect a farmer to be, stepped out and greeted us. "Good morning", he said, "I’m Prince Leonard Casley of the Hutt River Province".

He had me. What happened over the next hour or so is the most interesting story I’ve heard in my life, and I consider myself privileged to have met this man and heard it from the Prince himself.



I won’t go into too much detail as to what led to Hutt River ( the property) becoming an ’independent and sovereign state’, but lets just skirt around the outside of the story. The then governmentt of Australia, it seems, was giving Leonard a bit of a hard time with respect to some farming matters, and try as he might they would not budge from their ways, and the future seemed bleak for this farming family. He looked at all his options within the law and found that all roads led to a dead end but if he seceded from Australia then, in a nutshell, he could not be touched. In doing what he had in mind he would be realistically taking on the State of Western Australia, and The Commonwealth of Australia, not forgetting The British Commonwealth. Now you begin to understand the determination of this man and his inner strength, and the strength to face such opposition with complete confidence of victory. He had to work within the law, and if he lost guess where he would end up... locked up for a long long time.

This is a further story in the democratic right of every person, as long as you work within the law the law protects your democratic right, and Leonard won. No one can touch him now.

The Hutt River Province is his country. It is about 18’000 hectares and as he put it to me, it’s about the size of Hong Kong, "except a few more people live there." He has his own army, navy and airforce, it doesn’t matter if he has no tanks, planes or ships, on paper they exist. He has every legal requirement met, he has his own passport, which is recognised anywhere in the world, his own visas, his own currency, stamps, and you can even become a citizen of his country. He is the prince and his wife is the princess, yes his title is "HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE LEONARD" . He has adopted the laws of Australia and can change the few he doesn’t like... Hey! is this man a legend or not. He is the only person I know who was not born into royalty, he created it for himself, no body but no body calls him any thing else.

This man not only created a fairytale but he actually lives it, he is a simple man but very intelligent, with a great sense of humour, so if you ever come down under you must make the trip up to Kalbarri, and take the time to visit the Hutt River Province, believe me you will come out of there a better person, especially if you get to meet and shake the hand of His Royal Highness Prince Leonard George Caserly of Hutt River.

While we were taken on this inspiring journey through the kingdom I took a great video which I will treasure, and also bought some of his memorabilia, and his book, which has all the information and the letters, facts and figures. But in the book is a great ballad written by a Mrs Rita Pope, which sums up the whole story of Hutt River very nicely, its called ’Broken Serenity’, and this is what she had to say:-


Well I’ll tell you a tale of a farmers long fight,
A man who could not rest until he’s won his right
To work on his land and to live a good life,
With his four strapping sons, his three daughters and the wife

Well the government decreed with one wave of its hand:
"We don’t want your wheat, but we will take all your land"
"Never"! cried the farmer."This action is unjust.
You have betrayed the honest fold; you’ve broken your trust"

"Well listen, my family, to what I have to say:
Under this tyranny our land it will decay.
Our own separate land for us will be need-
We’ll wait thirty days, and then we’ll secede

Well the politicians muttered. He did what he meant.
"We’ll raise your wheat quota twelve hundred percent!"
"Too late "said the farmer "too long you did lag;
It’s Hutt River Province. We’ve raised up our flag."

Well the tale of his battle it was spread far and wide.
He would not be beaten nor run off and hide.
Let others take example of this courageous man:
"They said we can make it. We showed them we can"

’Tis of the rebel Casley a story will be told,
A man who valued freedom more than any sum of gold.
He settled in Hutt River, it was his chosen land.
’Twas there the rebel farmer will fight and make a stand.