Autobiography of the student at the Otago Medical School who became an Army Medical Officer, the paediatrician who became the doughty Medical Adviser to the Plunket Society, the historian who tramped over Fiordland. The years between between the visit from Halley's comet in 1910 and its reappearance in 1986 chart the life of a remarkable New Zealander. Neil Begg's account of tehse years begins with his Scottish immigrant forebears and concludes with a bi-cultural family gathering. The intervening years explore such events as two world wars, depressions, hunger in children, the advantages of citizen participation, the techniques of preventative medicine, discoveries in Fiordland and the importance of a bi-cultural future.