After leaving Cairns over eight years ago, Mr Hammond spent six months living out of his car.

“I drove all around the coast," he said.

“I was hunting around, prospecting for gems and such, but everywhere I went it would be raining.”

A cousin offered him their Narooma holiday home. That was eight years ago but illness meant Mr Hammond found it hard to meet people.

“I have emphysema  – there is not a lot I can do. I had no friends.

Since joining the men’s shed Mr Hammond has made “friends for life”, and is acknowledged as something of a master woodworker, returning to skills learnt in childhood.

“My father was a tree lopper, back in the fifties and sixties, and I worked with him as a kid,” Mr Hammond said.

“He got a contract in the Snowy Mountains: clearing the bush between the power-line towers between Cabramurra and the ACT border.”

The ten-year-old went with his dad for six-months, working through the winter.

“There was three foot of snow on the ground and we were walking around in our shorts; it was a different time.”

Keen to have her son’s education continue, Mr Hammond’s mum set up remote schooling, but “that lasted about three weeks”.

Mr Hammond has been with the men’s shed since the beginning – “I come in both days each week – in seven years I have missed two days” – and knows the place inside out.

“There is a saying around the men’s shed: if you cant find it, ask Harry,” Mr Hammond said.