For many, the defining events of a lifetime arrive in adulthood. For Colin Neave, they came much earlier. Born in Aberdeen on 6 August 1939, barely a month before Britain declared war on Germany, his earliest memories are framed by air raid sirens and the terror of bombs falling from the sky. One night in 1942, his mother hurried him and his older brother into the cellar as the Luftwaffe flew overhead. The blast of a nearby bomb tore open the cellar door, revealing the starlit night. The following morning, news spread that a house on the next street had been destroyed. “If the bomb aimer had delayed for perhaps a part of a second, we might have been wiped out too,” he later recalled.
It was a narrow escape that foreshadowed the resilience and sense of purpose that would characterise Colin’s life. His story is not simply one of professional achievement, but of survival, transformation, and faith channelled into healing others.
From Numbers to Nations
School offered Colin little joy; composition and writing, in particular, were subjects he despised. Leaving education without enthusiasm, he chose the world of figures instead, qualifying as a chartered accountant. His early career began in Aberdeen, but his ambitions soon stretched further. At the age of twenty-seven, with his wife Annette at his side, he boarded a VC10 aircraft bound for Uganda.
Kampala in the late 1960s was a place of both promise and peril. Uganda was politically unstable, with curfews in place both when Colin arrived and again when he departed after five years. Yet the adventure was unforgettable. “It was wonderful to be able to see the wild animals in their own locations, and be really close to them,” he remembered. These years gave him not only a taste for international living but also a first-hand experience of resilience amid uncertainty.
On returning to the UK, he worked first in East Anglia before being drawn back to Aberdeen, this time as part of the oil and gas boom. The city was quickly becoming a global hub, and Colin found himself at the centre of an industry transforming both Scotland and the wider world. His career prospered in this high-pressure environment, yet beneath the success, a deeper change was stirring.
A Turning Point in Faith
In Aberdeen, Colin became a Christian. This decision marked a turning point that would shape the rest of his life. Faith gave him not only personal solace but also a new vocation: counselling.
By 1980, having wrestled with his own struggles of rejection, choices, and emotional wounds, he enrolled in a five-year diploma in counselling. Through this, he discovered a profound sense of purpose using biblical principles to bring healing and wholeness to others. “I began to use the Bible’s teaching and wisdom to encourage and bring healing to men and women who were struggling with life, even as I had myself,” he explained.
His work as a Christian counsellor soon extended beyond Aberdeen, taking him to communities fractured by conflict and displacement. From Macedonia to India, Ethiopia to Bulgaria, Colin carried a message of restoration to those who had suffered unimaginable losses.
Healing in Broken Lands
One of the pivotal moments of Colin’s ministry came in the aftermath of the Yugoslav wars. Refugees from Kosovo were seeking refuge in Macedonia, and churches reached out for help from trained Christian counsellors. When the Institute of Christian Counsellors put out the call, Colin’s immediate response was: “Send me!”
Although the conflict had subsided by the time he arrived, his presence opened doors to a decade of ministry in Macedonia. Pastors and congregations welcomed him, and soon he was teaching and counselling across the region. Over the years, hundreds of people benefited from his work. “This first adventure was repeated for ten years,” he later reflected. “I brought counselling, and taught Christian counselling to many hundreds of people”.
His travels extended further: to India, Ethiopia, and Bulgaria, where communities traumatised by war, poverty, or political turmoil found in him a compassionate ear and a source of biblical wisdom. Yet, for Colin, these journeys were not only about teaching others. They were also about shared humanity finding common ground across cultures and faiths, and offering hope where despair threatened to dominate.
Writing as a New Calling
Despite his global experiences, Colin never thought of himself as a writer. Schooldays had left him with little confidence in composition, and for decades, he avoided the written word. But in 2015, a new compulsion emerged: to put down in writing what he had learnt through a lifetime of counselling and Christian faith. The result was his first book, Scriptural Healing and Wholeness, a modest first edition of 250 copies. While not a bestseller, it quietly transformed the lives of readers struggling with pain and rejection, fulfilling Colin’s hope that his lessons could reach beyond the counselling room.
Then, in 2024, came another turning point. After more than sixty years of marriage, Annette, his lifelong partner and fellow traveller in faith, passed away following a four-year battle with dementia. The loss was devastating. Yet even in grief, a new spark appeared.
One day, his cleaning lady asked him, “Colin, are you quite sure that you will see Annette again one day?” That simple question became the seed of a new book. What began as a few lines, inspired by a wooden rhino he used as an illustration of God’s creation, grew into Where Did the Second Monkey Come From? Published with the help of a London printing firm, Colin regarded the work as divinely inspired. “I believe that the whole thing was from God! He, therefore, will be the one who will be in charge of everything from now on,” he said.
A Legacy of Faith and Counselling
Today, Colin sees his mission as twofold: to bring healing through Christian counselling, and to challenge the modern assumptions resulting from the completely incorrect and misleading ideas of Charles Darwin and Rudolph Zallinger. He points instead to the creation account in Genesis as the true and believable foundation of human identity, far more credible than the theories formulated by 19th-century science.
His goal, he insists, is not academic debate but transformation: “My best hope would be that many men and women would recognise the hopelessness of their situation, and then give their lives to our saving God.”
A fellow traveller in faith, died after four years, during which dementia took away her strength and personality. The loss was profound, yet it deepened Colin’s conviction that faith offers hope even in suffering.
Colin’s ideal reader is not defined by age, class, or culture, but by need. He writes for those who feel lost, broken, or searching for something indefinable in a fractured world. Whether through counselling sessions in Aberdeen, sermons in Macedonia, or the pages of his books, his message is constant: healing and wholeness are possible through surrender to Christ.
A Journey Still Unfolding
From surviving bombs in wartime Aberdeen to counselling in post-war Macedonia, Colin Neave’s life has been marked by moments of danger, displacement, and renewal. Professionally, he moved from accountancy to international oil, but spiritually, his path has been one of transformation through faith.
His story is not only personal but emblematic of the redemptive possibilities of resilience and belief. A man who once hated writing now uses words to bring comfort and provoke thought; a man who once counted numbers now counts souls as his true calling.
In the end, Colin’s legacy is best described in his own conviction: that even in a broken world, there is hope for wholeness when faith becomes the compass. His life, shaped by war, work, and faith, continues to stand as a testament to the power of survival, service, and spiritual renewal.