Alan Titchall taps into his childhood memories for the setting of his first novel.
He grew up in a small hydro village in the early 1960s, on the eve of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
In While The Fantail Lives, we see village life through the eyes of 11 year old Bob, who accidentally injures a white piwakaka and is desperate to keep it alive.
Bob also befriends a German who lives among people who don't want him there because of painful memories of the Second World War.
Lynn Freeman talks with Alan about 1960s New Zealand.
While the Fantail Lives by Alan Titchall is published by Devonmedia.
