The youngest child of a family torn apart by the death of their mother, Harold Lourie is separated from his eight siblings and handed over to two strangers at Palmerston North railway station.

Harold vividly recalls the small New Zealand towns he grew up in, and the people who shaped him. He pays homage to Mattie, his adoptive mother, the single, deaf woman who raised him through the Great Depression and the devastating 1931 Hawke’s Bay earthquake.

From Hastings to the front line in Italy during WWII, Harold’s narrative is candid, revealing and often humorous. I asked, and he talked is an extraordinary story about an ordinary man who encountered major historical events and overcame personal hurdles as he traversed the 20th century.