The Moliagul farmer would collect his tools – a shovel and a pick, in particular – and get to work digging a grave. 

Recorded in a series of diaries are the 1953 names of the people John has buried since 1979.

Among them are babies and children, taken too soon; people who met tragic ends, and those who passed away peacefully.

John’s beloved wife, Vera, was in the latter category.

She went to bed one June evening in 2011 and never woke up. 

With tears in his eyes, John said he thought Vera had slept in. An hour later, he rang his children to break the news.

Not long afterwards, he started digging. 

Walking through the Moliagul Cemetery, where he laid Vera to rest, John passes the graves of friends and family members – many of whom he helped bury.

Vera’s grave is a modest mound of earth, marked by flowers, but no headstone. 

Asked whether it was the hardest grave he’s had to dig, the 79-year-old said no.

“It was quite good digging,” John said.

Many people use the word ‘hard’ to describe burying a loved one, in an emotional sense.

For John, it relates to the difficulty of the terrain. 

“I dug some pretty tough stone over the years,” he said.

“I went over to Landsborough one day and dug one, because they couldn’t get it dug.

“I did one at Amphitheatre because it had to be dug in among the headstones and they couldn’t get in there with the machine… I finished early that day.” 

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Each and every one of the graves John has crafted have been dug by hand. 

“It’s a dying art,” he said. 

“I always worked manually on the farm… when you’re working manually all the time, you just keep going.”

John’s was a generation for which nothing came easily. 

He walked a mile to school when he was a child, and helped his parents with the horses, hay, cropping and chores when he was home. 

“You learnt to look after things,” John said. 

When it came to learning how to dig a grave, much of it was self-taught.

Other pieces of advice, John said he picked up along the way. 

Though he’s modest, it’s evident he takes a great deal of pride in a job well done.

“I’ve got a scarf, it’s over two metres long and at the foot end it’s about 14 inches. The head end’s 15 and it comes out to 27 inches at the shoulders, in the shape of a coffin,” John said. 

“If that’ll go in, a coffin will go in. 

“To start a grave with that plate, you lay it on the ground, get it lined up and then pick around it, and then once you get down so far I and make sure it’ll go in, I can just about dig it without testing it.

“The biggest one I dug was at Newbridge, it had to be 29 inches width and I think it was over seven feet long – he was a big man. 

“It took eight blokes to carry that coffin.” 

John dug his first grave on July 19, 1970, at Tarnagulla. 

Asked why he thought he was asked to do the job, John said it was because he wasn’t frightened to work.

“It’s a job that’s got to be done, and you do it,” he said.

“It’s the last thing you do for some people.”

He was initially offered the opportunity to dig six or seven graves a year. 

“By ’79, I was digging in 11 cemeteries,” John said.

“I finished up digging a round of 14, but I dug in 20 cemeteries.

“I turned out quite good, really, because it just gave us a bit extra.”

He started keeping a record of the people he had helped bury five years after he dug his first grave, but estimates he has dug more than 2000 graves.

Fraying, yellow pages bear the carefully printed names of the dead in his 1988 diary. 

Those from more recent times include post-it notes, with added details. 

“I haven’t found my diaries from ’75 to ’78,” John said.

John’s records ended a year ago, when he hung up his pick and spade.

“I was getting pretty slow and I got shingles in the face, and that knocked me,” he said.

“That was the first time I’ve really been sick.”

He dug two graves after he got shingles at the end of July, last year. 

“The first one wasn’t too bad because it was in Eddington, and Eddington is pretty good going,” John said.

“The next one I did was in Inglewood, and it was pretty tough going, so I just had to give it up.”

One time, when he was digging at Inglewood, someone reported him to police.

“They said there was someone digging for gold in Inglewood cemetery,” John said.

The man with a heart of gold has links to the region’s gold mining history. 

The world’s largest gold nugget, the Welcome Stranger, was discovered in Moliagul.

One of the nugget’s co-discoverers, John Deason, used to own the Shay family household before John Shay’s parents. 

Mr Deason is also buried in the Moliagul Cemetery, about 66 kilometres west of Bendigo along the Wimmera Highway.

Some of the 20 funeral directors and cemetery trusts John has worked with throughout the years have arranged an afternoon tea in his honour on November 30. 

The event, at Rheola Hall, runs from 1pm until 4pm. 

Organisers said all are welcome to attend. 

Contemplating what he would say on the day, John said he didn’t know where to start. But he thinks someone ought to be taping it. 

“Once it’s said, it’ll be gone,” John said. 

Cemetery trusts and funeral directors have arranged an afternoon tea to thank the man who has dug more than 2000 graves. 

John Shay’s friends at Napier Park Funerals know him to be a beautiful and humble man.

“He has dug out tonnes of soil and rock, formed perfectly shaped graves, and then filled them in again after the burial,” funeral consultant June Andrew said. 

“This is an amazing and extraordinary effort, and more so given the hard, granite gold-bearing nature of the majority of these cemeteries.

“Through all weather conditions, John has dug graves for families at short notice.  

“He is a true Aussie legend who we believe should receive the recognition he is due.”

The event runs from 1 – 4pm on November 30 at the Rheola Hall. 

The Bendigo Advertiser