Harry Southall Owen was born in Bilston in the heart of Staffordshire in 1908. He was born into a poor working class family living in the slums of the Black Country, he was one of eight children. When he was a youngster his mother would despair at his behaviour and the local police were always on hand to round him up when needed and eventually to take him to court then on to an Industrial school for juvenile vagrancy. Little did anyone know that this was in some ways the making of Harry who in his own words talks us through his struggling childhood and adolescent years before enlisting, when he signs up to fight for his country in the Second World War. His words bring to life the atmosphere of the nation during the war and the great depression that Britain suffered in the first part of the 20th century.