A DAY IN THE LIFE - DARRYL RANK

AT 57 YEARS of age, Darryl Rank was told he was "too old” to look for work.

After 40 years in the workforce, Mr Rank said he found this news a little hard to take.

"It really knocked me about a bit,” he said.

"I'd been working all my life and wasn't really sure what I'd do without it.

"But there is life after work, it's a hard slog, but it's there.”

Mr Rank said his saviour was the Warwick Men's Shed.

"I joined the SES, because I needed something to do and a bloke there suggested the Men's Shed,” he said.

"So I came up and have been here ever since.

"That was about four or five years ago.”

Mr Rank said he owned a couple of acres out of town, so there were things to be done, but something was missing.

"You miss the camaraderie and the mateship,” he said.

"I've spent my whole life working with blokes, and once you stop working, you're off the books.

"You lose all that interaction.

"Men's Shed saved my wife from me and saved my sanity.”

Born and raised in Melbourne, Mr Rank said he found work as a cable joiner for Telecom (now Telstra) and moved to Port Hedland in Western Australia.

"Port Hedland is said to be the dirtiest town in Australia,” Mr Rank said.

"That's not a fair picture though, it's a lovely town.

"But it's hot, dusty and everything is red.

"And the flies, you haven't seen flies till you've been there.”

Mr Rank said after his stint in Port Hedland he moved south Busselton, WA and stayed there for 20 years.

"I took a redundancy eventually and we moved around a bit before the wife and I decided to was time to travel.

"So we bought a camper trailer and set off.

"The destination and possible settling place was Toowoomba.

"We drove across the Nullarbor and through South Australia, then around Victoria through New South Wales north to Queensland.”

Mr Rank said Toowoomba wasn't quite what they expected.

"It was too big for us,” he said.

"So we turned around and thought we'd start heading home to WA.

"We made it as far as Warwick.

"We loved it and just stayed, that was six years ago now.”