This article by Roger Sanders appeared in The Sun on 11 June 1975 and features Patrick Francis ‘Tock’ Maher (1903-2000), son of Rody Maher and Annie Buckley.

Pat “Toc” Maher, Kilmore’s landmark blacksmith, has hung up his apron for the last time.

“I’d say that 58 years in the game is long enough,” he said as he looked around his earthen-floor shop in the town’s main street.

“I’ll still potter about a bit and look after some stud horses, but generally I’ll take things easy.”

Toc, 71, has had the smithy’s shop with the plaster horse’s head over the door for 40 years.

He left Kilmore College at 13 to work for the previous owner Charlie Stray, a general blacksmith and wheelwright.

“In those days we charged seven shillings to shoe a horse and four bob for removes (removing shoes, trimming hooves and replacing the same shoes),” he said.

“Nowadays the charges are $12 and $10 for a pacer or trotter and a little bit less for a hack or pony.”

Toc, who can still swing a hammer with the best of them, can remember when up to 20 horses were waiting in the yard for shoes.

“We used to get a lot of customers of the highway before trucks and cars took over,” he said.

“A lot of them were furniture drays on their way to the bush from Melbourne.”

A big man, Toc is as well known in Kilmore, 60 kilometres (37 miles) north of Melbourne, as his white cement smithy’s shop.

He has been a member of the town fire brigade for 45 years, 20 of them as captain, and a member of the Kilmore Water Trust for 30 years.

He is also on the committee of Kilmore Racing Club and Kilmore Agricultural Society.

Although retired from his old forge and anvil, Toc still tends horses one day a week at Mr and Mrs Geoffrey Levitt’s Willowmavin Stud, near Kilmore.

One of his charges is the New Zealand-bred filly Philomel, which won the Hallam Handicap at Moonee Valley on May 31.

He also keeps a close watch on the 100 other thoroughbreds on the stud.

Toc has never shod a Melbourne Cup winner in the thousands of horses he has handled, but he has looked after horses for visiting royalty.

And until recently he and an assistant kept many of Melbourne’s milk cart horses on the road.

Now Toc will have more time to spend with his wife Hilda and their two dogs.

The busy ring of his anvil will still be heard in Kilmore, but from now on it will be a younger man wielding the hammer.