Tuhirangi Louis Timoti (Ngāti Whātua/Ngāpuhi) was born on 9 January 1947 and raised at Kakanui, near Helensville. The family shifted to Manurewa in 1962 and, shortly after, Timoti began receiving guitar lessons twice a week from Johnny Bradfield in Blockhouse Bay. “Johnny was a lovely man with a lovely whānau,” he remembers. “I’d spend all day there, getting fed and everything.”