There are 3600 seconds in the first hour of each morning. The first hour may start at different times depending on awakening.

For example, the first hour today started at 10.30 am , yesterday at 8.00 am and so on. This happens because of retirement.

In the olden days many years ago at Warburton Ranges, my day would generally start at around 3.30’am. It was 1974.

I was a school principal and also a remote-area student studying by correspondence. Our house was joined to the school by a shared aluminium roof and separated by a breezeway that led to our donkey boiler and the school’s sole rainwater tank. (Maybe more about those later),

At 3.30 am, I would go into my classroom which was the closest of the four linear classrooms to our house. There I would spent around two hours, sometimes a little longer, studying. (Again, maybe more about that later).

At the end of my solitude of study, I would check with my wife and our three children, then aged nearly three, 18 months and three months of age – at the start anyway.

I would then light our donkey boiler fire to ensure hot water.

Showering and dressing followed. Then it was off to fuel the donkey boilers that heated water for the communal showers.

That involved stacking dried tree branches – that had been delivered by the community – under the 44 gallon drums and firing the wood in order that the water in the drums was heated.

The boilers were set up with proper inlet and outlet reticulation so hot water was replaced by cold. The drums were placed on their sides to facilitate heating.

To be continued