When a trusted friend told Bernie O'Keefe "the electrics are stuffed in your heart, mate", he decided it was time to slow down.
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The electrician, who had a pacemaker fitted on Christmas Eve, is retiring after almost 60 years in the industry.
Mr O'Keefe, 75, said it was a difficult decision to make. "There's been some hard times - as with every job - and the hard times were around the Ash Wednesday bushfires," he said.
That's because the whole industry was overhauled as a result of the fires.
"Prior to that, electricity went into your house overhead on poles and using ladders, which I hated anyway," Mr O'Keefe said. "Then the whole system changed to underground."
Mr O'Keefe, who started an apprenticeship with John Reid when he was 16, said he was looking forward to having a break for a few months when he retired.
He said overall, he loved being an electrician.
"The time has gone so quickly and it has been a wonderful industry to work in," Mr O'Keefe said.
He credits Warrnambool doctor Noel Bayley, the man who told him his electrics were "stuffed", with saving his life.
Mr O'Keefe said he had been feeling unwell and fatigued for months before he blacked out at work one day.
It was Dr Bayley who told Mr O'Keefe he needed a pacemaker.
Mr O'Keefe said he attended the Warrnambool technical school (now South West TAFE) on the advice of his late father Tom.
His father worked away a lot with the Country Roads Board and when he came home one weekend he asked his eldest child what he wanted to do for a career.
Mr O'Keefe, who was attending CBC, admits he wasn't excelling at school because he and a group of mates had angered their teacher. The group had decided to leave school early one day.
"A couple of boys asked me if I wanted to hitchhike home to Port Fairy and go swimming," Mr O'Keefe said.
When their teacher found out, he punished them by largely ignoring their efforts to complete the work he set.
"We got an earful and he said 'I'm not going to teach you kids anymore'."
Mr O'Keefe said his father suggested he consider a trade.
"He said 'I think you're going to become a tradesperson'," Mr O'Keefe said. "He said 'well carpenters are tuppence a dozen and plumbing is a pretty dirty job but if you're an electrician it's a clean job and you get well paid'."
Mr O'Keefe took his father's advice and was offered an apprenticeship while studying. He happily accepted.
When he wasn't studying or working, Mr O'Keefe was a member of the Port Fairy Skin Diving Club.
He remembers the day Henri Bource was attacked by a great white shark near Lady Julia Percy Island back in 1964. "The Melbourne Skin Diving Club wanted to go to Lady Julia Percy Island and they asked our club to go with them," he said.
Mr O'Keefe said he remembered the day Mr Bource, who survived, was attacked like it was yesterday.
He also had another scare while diving at Killarney on his own.
"I was on my own and I double-cramped in the legs in the rip," Mr O'Keefe said.
He said he feared he would drown and vowed to never go out alone again.
When he was 18, Mr O'Keefe was called up to serve at Vietnam, but he got special permission to have it deferred.
His father had been killed in a car crash and his mother was left to care for five children - the youngest was only two years old.
Mr O'Keefe said this meant he had to join the Army Reserve.
"I loved every minute of it," he said.
A couple of months after his father's death, Mr O'Keefe was involved in a car accident on the Garvoc bridge. He was one of three passengers in a Holden EH ute.
There were works being completed on the bridge and the car travelling towards Mr O'Keefe and his mates veered over to their side of the road.
"The ute was hanging over the edge of the bridge on the back wheels," Mr O'Keefe said.
He said his mates scrambled out and then yelled out to him.
Mr O'Keefe said he found that he was stuck - the gear stick had pierced his ribs and lungs. "I had to pull myself off and then they dragged me out," Mr O'Keefe said.
Doctors at the Terang hospital told him he would need to stay in for the night. But he flat out refused.
Mr O'Keefe said his mother wouldn't have been able to cope with the news he had been in a car accident so he returned home to Port Fairy to show her he was OK.
"One of the other guys knocked on the door and told Mum I had been in a car accident - I made sure I got straight out of the car so that she could see I was all right," he said.
Mr O'Keefe worked for Mr Reid for about 30 years. He said he loved the job because each day "I was doing something different".
Mr O'Keefe said Mr Reid told him he could take over the business, an offer he happily accepted. He said the danger aspect of the job was something you didn't think about much when you were starting out. But few sparkies, he said, made the same mistake twice.
"We've all had jolts," Mr O'Keefe said.
"When you have a decent one - and there's not many sparkies who haven't had a bit of a touch up with the power or blown something up - there's a sixth sense inside you that tells you when something is wrong and you pull out your testing equipment to fix it."
Mr O'Keefe said his greatest achievement in life was putting his wife's niece through university.
He met his wife Natinee McLeish, who is from Thailand, about 15 years ago.
The two decided to bring her niece Pawinee to Australia with them for a better life.
Mr O'Keefe said he was delighted to be able to put Pawinee, who is now 31, through university.
"That's why I still work today but to see her grow into the young woman she is today and to think she still could have been in Thailand on the streets, that's what I live for - that's my greatest achievement."
Mr O'Keefe said he had been overwhelmed by all the people wishing him the best in his retirement.
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