Despite retiring last year, Rod Deakin still has a very important job to do. As does his colleague Frank Johnston who has been retired for close to 20 years.

Each year in the days before Remembrance Day the two former RMIT surveying lecturers repeat a ritual which started in the mid-1970s.

Carrying a theodolite, a rectangular mirror and a small stool, they climb the now familiar stone stairs which take them inside the Shrine's roof-cavity. Climbing a few more steps, they emerge to daylight on the eastern side of the upper walkway and head for a low steel pillar with a circular mirror attached to the top of it.

With their understudy Steven Sheppard, the trio are in charge of making sure that next Tuesday when the clock ticks 11am on Remembrance Day, a beam of sunlight will strike the stone of remembrance in the main hall of the Shrine, some 35 metres below.