Wayne Kerrisk grew up hearing about the cannon buried in the backyard of his family's suburban home.
With childhood imagination running wild, Mr Kerrisk would picture pirate ships and seafaring battles every time his dad, Dick, pointed to the spot near the roses where the cannon was said to be buried.
But it took 70 years, and a few beers, to unearth the treasure.
When Mr Kerrisk told the backyard cannon legend to his mates earlier this month, they all agreed: "Let's dig it up".
The group hosted a "cannon party" and got digging.
"We hit it straight away," Mr Kerrisk said.
He initially thought it could have been a ceramic pipe.
"We were not expecting anything of that size," he said.
"It's pretty rare that you get a three-metre cannon in your yard … I'm chuffed."
So, one mystery was solved: there was, indeed, a cannon in the garden.
But how and why did it end up in central Queensland?
Rolled into a trench
Mr Kerrisk's father bought the land in Rockhampton in the early 1950s.
"This was a vacant block … according to Dad, there was this cannon left or dumped on this piece of land," he said.
"So [Dad] and the people building the house at the time tried to roll it next door but they couldn't do it due to the size.
"They just dug a trench and rolled it in."
That was where Rockhampton amateur historian Ann Gaskell came in.
She had been posting stories from the city's newspaper archives to social media for five years.
Ms Gaskell found mentions of a "one o'clock time gun" but hadn't looked any further into it until a friend told her about Mr Kerrisk's backyard discovery.
Newspaper records show there were four time guns used in Rockhampton between 1865 and 1894 when a clock was installed in the city centre.
Ms Gaskell believes Mr Kerrisk unearthed the first gun, due to the size and cast-iron construction.
What is a one o'clock gun?
Sailors needed accurate time for navigation, but there wasn't a universal method for this until the first time ball was installed on England's south coast in 1829.
The ball would rise up its mast and fall at 1pm, signalling the time to sailors in port.
The firing of a gun in support is believed to have originated due to frequent cloudy weather in Edinburgh, Scotland, according to Newcastle resident Frank Carter.
Mr Carter is president of the Fort Scratchley Historical Society, where a replica gun is fired daily with the guidance of a time ball at Newcastle's Customs House.
"The time ball would drop and the gun would fire so the ships in the harbour, if they couldn't see the time ball, would hear the gun," he said.
Mr Carter suggested Rockhampton's time gun may be part of its history as a port city.
"I would have thought that the local historical community should be happy to get their hands on it," he said.
'Notorious uncertainty' prompts purchase
While Rockhampton was a thriving port until the mid-20th century, it appears the city's time gun was introduced by a concerned citizen.
Newspapers of the time reported "notorious uncertainty and extraordinary variations" in clocks across the town, which had a population of about 1,000 people at the time.
So, Captain Robert White — a bank manager and part of the volunteer corps — bought a cannon and started his own one o'clock gun on March 23, 1865.
"In March 1869 he was leaving Rockhampton … and he handed the gun over to the [council]," Ms Gaskell said.
Eventually, the original cast iron cannon was replaced with a smaller brass model, which halved the amount of gunpowder needed.
There were complaints about the noise of the cannon over the years, and plenty of pranks played to stop it firing.
Somehow, the original ended up languishing in the scrap heap at a south Rockhampton quarry until it was found in the 1930s.
"In the 1950s some time it was taken home and buried," Ms Gaskell said.
"I don't know why – maybe they realised that it was of historic value.
"We will probably never know why it ended up in the backyard."
What happens now?
The shovels are down in Mr Kerrisk's yard and he's waiting to see if Rockhampton Regional Council will help excavate the heavy artefact.
Mr Kerrisk senior made a similar offer about 40 years ago — although it was still in the ground.
"He just said, 'Look, if you dig it up, just make sure you put the roses back' and the council refused to do it," Mr Kerrisk said.
He said he hoped the cannon could be restored and displayed, which would give him and his mates another excuse for a party.
Rockhampton Regional Council has been contacted for comment.
