Liddell power station closure: shift manager Steve Lanesbury to decommission last unit at Liddell

It's a lot more complex than flicking a switch, but for Mr Lanesbury, decommissioning the last unit at the power station is like saying goodbye to a steadfast, well-respected matriarch.

"I think the hardest bit will be shutting down the unit emotionally," he said.

"I'm pretty attached to them and I think once we shut down that last unit there will be a few boys with their heads down."

Shutting down the final unit alongside him will be Barry Moffitt, the pair have been mates since they began their apprenticeships together about 44 years ago.

When Mr Lanesbury started as an electrician, hundreds of people worked at Liddell - but you didn't just work together. Colleagues became mates, drinking partners, fellow water skiers and team mates on the local sports team.

"Now heading into the closure, it's like a ghost town," he said.

"Back then it was a very large community and that community extended outside of work as well, it was a great place to work."

In those days unionism was rife, workers would go on strike 'at the drop of a hat' - today the union presence is still strong but not as "militant", Mr Lanesbury said.

"Everyone was engaged in it, it was driven out of the old construction days," he said.

"It was at every power station, whether that was good or bad I'm not really sure.

"We would go on strike at the drop of a hat, if someone said the wrong thing to someone else we'd be out the gate."

He still remembers a six-week strike about electrician grading that was only broken when two blokes walked out and started at Bayswater across the New England Highway.

"It took 10 to 15 years for that union side of things to start changing a little bit," he said.

Mr Lanesbury spent two decades rising through the ranks to become a shift manager, the person that's responsible for the site after hours and the people who operate the power station.

He's been heavily involved in the closure and plans to retire in July once the units are ready for demolition.

"I'm the senior shift manager and I've trained a lot of the operators so it's been a pretty satisfying career," he said.

"The power station is ready to retire having given 50 years of service to the state and I'm ready to retire too, not far behind her being decommissioned."

Mr Lanesbury said he's grateful to Liddell for all of the opportunities it afforded his family.

"Everything I've got is because of Liddell," he said.

"Mum and dad bought their house in 1972 because of Liddell and mum still lives there now.

"The memories and mates I've got in this place is why I love it, it's like a family here.

"People tend to look at it from the outside in and think it's dark, dingy or terrible, but it's the people who make it a nice place to work, we all care for each other and give to each other because everyone wants to be here."

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