Now 93 years old, Ms Clark remembers her father digging a trench in the family’s backyard, ready for the town’s siren to signal the approach of the Imperial Japanese Army.

In the late 1930s, her identical twin sister Merle became friends with Ms Edmunds, a work colleague at the Candelo Hotel. With dark hair and slim build, Ms Clark described her as being very pretty and tough from her scow country upbringing.

Ms Edmunds, who will celebrate her 100^th birthday on February 19, reunited with Ms Clark by chance one night over dinner at Hillgrove House aged care facility.

“I just couldn’t believe it, you could’ve knocked me over with a feather,” Ms Clark said.

“Merle used to always wonder what happened to May, and I’m so sorry she’s gone because she knew her more than I did.

“To end up in the same place is uncanny.”

The pair have caught up on over 80 years of stories, sharing with each other the many up and downs life brings.

“She had a tough life,” Ms Clark said.

“They used to have to walk three miles to school in the snow.

“She always had plenty of pluck that girl.”

They recounted times of social dances for soldiers leaving for and returning from World War 2, locals manufacturing makeshift wooden guns to help hold down the front line at Tathra Beach, and a mobile cinema that would visit Candelo every Saturday night.

“Once the screen broke down halfway through a John Wayne film, we were heartbroken we didn’t get to see it,” Ms Clark said with a laugh.

“I’d help out at the hotel occasionally, but there wasn’t much work in Candelo, so we moved to Bega.

“It was very quiet, Bega was  just a village.”

While the hotel where they met all those years ago in Candelo later burnt to the ground, and was never rebuilt, the pair have rekindled a friendship, and with it, memories of a time now long gone.