Grandson of Essie

Oswald (Ossie) Harding OJ, CD, QC, Phd.

is well known to Jamaicans as a member

of the Jamaica Labour Party, former

Minister of Justice and Attorney General, and

former president of the Senate. What may be

less well known is that he was president for two

non-consecutive tenures, and that his first

period as a senator (1977-2002) was the longest

continuous tenure in the body's history.

Many readers will be aware that Harding is a

patron of the arts and dedicated art collector.

Fewer may know that on his retirement from

politics he decided to study philosophy, and that

he was awarded a doctorate (Phd) in that subject

from the University of the West Indies, Mona

campus; or that, above all else, he is a devoted

husband and father, son and grandson - a family

man.

As Henry Lowe notes in his foreword, it is

from this book that "the real Ossie Harding"

emerges; and its pages are "loaded with interesting

and informative anecdotes" which identify its

author as "a rich resource of culture and history".

Ossie Harding, in short, is a fascinating person,

as his disarmingly honest, humorous, and very

readable autobiography demonstrates.