When Tom breathed his last painful breath and was put to rest in the tiny local churchyard the crowd was enormous. I was amazed at how many people actually lived in that wilderness. He was loved and respected and Dorrie was exalted for having tended to him, kept him alive in fact.

We met Tom Mills when he came to the shed the day Jimmy shore the rams. Shearing the rams is the last big thing the farmer must do when shearing is over for another year. Always a glamour event, it brings a small audience of locals to check out what you’ve got and stay for a cuppa.

Sometimes I would ride our horse Copper, a stock-horse–cross, or walk across the few paddocks separating our farms, and along the creek to visit Dorrie and Tom. Tom would always be sitting by the kitchen fire, whatever the temperature outside. I would sit with him, listening to his stories which, as were always stained with complaint, as with all farmers, watching him as he stared into the fire like a big old cat. The kitchen had become his last pozzie in life.