In September I drove up to North Queensland to carry out the work on the Charters Towers mural. I was a bit apprehensive because I’d had to negotiate a timeframe and price for the work – but I only had a few photographs to go on, to judge how much work was actually involved.

As it turned out, it took just over two weeks, so the assessment wasn’t too far off the money. I scraped it back where necessary, cleaned it all up and replaced the colour where needed. This wasn’t quite the headache I’d imagined it might be, as modern technology is able to analyse the loose flakes of paint and match the colour exactly. I just collected a few flakes and took them to the hardware store.

The major part of it was re-doing the sky, which had faded to white. That meant about five days up a scaffolding, five or six metres off the ground. The finished work came up pretty well, I thought, and the local Council were happy. The first photo gives a good idea of the scale of the thing.