Bill Northern Animal Communicator - Bills globetrotting search for water and healing sick horses is a far cry from his early life in the United States where he grew up in Warsaw, a small town in remote eastern Virginia.
By modern standards he had a hard childhood.
His father, who ran a general store in the town, died when Bill was just seven and his mother, lacking sufficient business acumen to carry on running the store, sold the business.
Life for Bill and his mother was a financial struggle. So much so that when he was 12 he began working 30 hours a week in his uncles restaurant, fitting the work around school, and 50 hours a week during school holidays.
I had to support myself. I never went hungry but if I wanted extras I had to go out and earn the money. That was not unusual.
It was during his time growing up in rural Virginia that Bills lifelong love of horses developed. Over the following decades he became drawn into the world of horseracing, working as a judge at racetracks making sure trainers and drivers were sticking to the rules. He has also owned between 30 and 35 trotters in his time, although he says he only ever owned one he would describe as successful. That was before he discovered his new-found skills.
Bill busied himself at the restaurant for five years, using the proceeds from some of his labours to get his uncle to buy him a typewriter he used as his ticket to better school marks.
My handwriting was not very good and you got better grades if you typed your assignments.
The effort paid off as Bill was awarded a scholarship to attend the University of Richmond but recalls that he didnt exactly use the time productively.
I didnt plan to go to college and I had never been anywhere on my own before. I ended up spending most of my time playing poker, playing in a band and shooting on the rifle team. I didnt work.
After another unsuccessful stint at a second university, Bill headed to Washington DC where he worked in a hotel and rubbed shoulders with some of the capitals movers and shakers before returning to Warsaw, where he set up his office and janitorial supplies business.
Bill ran the business for 25 years until he discovered dowsing and decided that he wanted to concentrate on this and subsequently retired from the business world.
These days he travels six months of the year attending many horse shows throughout the eastern United States during the northern summer, before escaping to New Zealand to avoid some of the harsh North American winter although he says it’s the warm, friendly people that are the biggest draw card for him.
I spent one winter in Florida but I missed New Zealand too much to do it again.
He has been coming south since 1989, staying in Rakaia, a town he says is very similar in size to his hometown back in Virginia. At various times he has dabbled in real estate in New Zealand but has now largely given up playing the property market, preferring to devote his energies to filling dry wells and horses.
