At the St Patrick's Day Irish Club dinner on Saturday, its president will give his 46th successive address as president of the club.
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That's an astonishing achievement of longevity in any club and one which John Hetherton can be rightly proud of.
Mr Hetherton is a proud Irishman but he has also been a stalwart of the Irish Club for the best part of half a century, having joined the board in 1974.
The Co Cavan native moved to London in 1968 where he met two people who would play a major role in the rest of his life, one was his future wife Ann and the other was a fellow Irishman Ben Gillic.
John, Ben and a third man Blond Tom Hetherton (no relation), all born within a few miles of each other, decided to leave London and take their chances in Australia.
"In Sydney and got a job in the brewery, but the rent was high and the money wasn't great so we were thinking of leaving," he said,
"Then we saw an ad for Hilton, the big lead mine, so we came up to Mount Isa by train and the three of us started in the mines and we lived in the mineside barracks."
Mr Hetherton admits the young Irishmen found the fierce North West Queensland weather "brutal" in an era without air conditioning.
But he gradually adapted, married the English love of his life Ann and bought a house in Mount Isa.
The Irish Club was an obvious attraction for the young men though it didn't begin well for John.
"The first time I was there I was thrown out!" he said.
But it didn't take long for them to get involved in the committee.
"Blond Tom went back to Ireland because of his shoulder (injury) and I joined first and then Ben later," he said.
"It was the best thing for the Club Ben joined because he was secretary. The secretary had allowed the manager full control of the correspondence as soon as Ben came in, he took it back."
Mr Hetherton said a good club needed good management.
"We've had our ups and downs, we had barneys," he said.
"The strength of this club in the years I've been here is management, and that came from Ben and we're very lucky now we've got (Ben's son) Bernard (Gillic)."
Mr Hetherton said that was borne out in the fact that seven clubs had closed down in Mount Isa over the ears and the Irish Club was still going strong.
"People don't know how close to the wind we flew at some times," he said.
"We owed $12 million at one point."
Mr Hetherton said they were doing the first big extension to the club downstairs when they had a meeting about the construction.
"We ran into a nutty case where we have the beer downstairs but how do we get it upstairs, and the architect said you'll have to get a lift which would cost $30,000," he said.
"And Dennis Brennan from Sligo, he's dead now, said, 'but sure we have a lift' and we said 'what are you talking about' and he said 'you've got a fork lift'.
"That decision was taken and we put a hole in the floor, and the forklift moved the beer."
Disclosure: the author is on the Irish Club committee