Stephen Harper worshiped Pierre Elliot Trudeau, preferred John Lennon to Paul McCartney, came across as 20-going-on-40, and was troubled by the notion that he had failed his father.

That's how Frank Glenfield, Harper's boss at Imperial Oil in the 1970's, remembered the prime minister in a 2008 interview with the Edmonton Journal's David Staples.

When Glenfield passed away earlier this month, Harper fulfilled a promise and delivered the eulogy at his funeral last week in Edmonton.

The eulogy had thus motivated Staples to recount his interview with Glenfield in an article he published on Tuesday.

During the interview, Glenfield said Harper was hard working but troubled "boy" who had moved to Edmonton after dropping out of the University of Toronto in 1978.

"My office boy was Stephen Harper." he told Staples. "He did very well in a very entry level job. He sort of checked the cash, delivered mail and that sort of thing. He wasn't above doing anything."

"Stephen had broken with his family because they had wanted him to be a chartered accountant at the University of Toronto, where his brothers were. He decided he was going to be a pioneer, he was going out west. He was going to find his own way."

Glenfield added that Harper was very "bright" but didn't get along terribly well with the other staff because he had sort of an "Eastern attitude."

"When Stephen first came to Edmonton, he was a Trudeau Liberal. He thought Trudeau was god," he said.

"He entered the University of Calgary, which is right wing of the Ayatollah Khomeini, as you probably know, and he became very much under that influence."

On weekends after moving to Calgary, Harper would often come to Edmonton with his girlfriend, and sleepover in sleeping bags on the Glenfield's floor.

According to Staples, Harper always remembered Glenfield's friendship.

The two kept in touch over the years, even as Harper rose to power in Ottawa. He even brought his wife-to-be Laureen to the Glenfield house to introduce her.

And, after he was elected prime minister, Harper dropped in one day at the Glenfield's, complete with his RCMP security guards.

"He was very warm. And very tired," Glenfield said.

"Stephen is a nice boy. I keep calling him a boy because he was a boy when he worked for me."