Consideration of this topic and reminiscing on the past of so very long ago, makes me feel chronologically enhanced, almost to the extreme edge of age.

When I was five, it was as a tiny, weeny boy with a one-year-old sister and a Mother and Father who were, as I discovered years later, far older as parents than I had ever imagined.

Shyness and naivety spring to mind as remembered traits. I led a sheltered life and was on the verge of going to school.

Our farm was situated just off a gravel road. Every three or four months the road was graded by a grader driver. He had a donga on wheels towed behind the grader.

The grader operator would park his home on wheels just off the road, then grade a section of road of around ten kilometres on both sides of his residence.

At the end of the day, he would park the grader, rest the night, and then carry on the next day.

When grading the section was complete, the grader driver would hitch his house behind the grader and move on to the next location.

As a five-year-old boy, I was fascinated by this occupation and wanted to be a grader driver when I grew up.