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Shelby is more than qualified to talk about Fort Direction... after all his great-grandfather was caretaker of the site and his grandfather grew up there.
In the early 1900s Courtney Calvert farmed the area but with the threat of war looming in 1939 the Army acquired the land and installed guns, searchlights, living quarters, a recreation hall and cricket and tennis courts.
Fort Direction was soon opened as a training camp and life for the locals in South Arm changed. More families moved to the area, the shop was able to hold more stock, the school grew in size and homes, until then reliant upon lamps and candles, were able to access power from the electricity line installed to service the Fort.
Suddenly there were things to do in sleepy South Arm more attuned to life in a city - Wednesday night was picture night at Fort Direction and Calverton Hall shook with the pounding of feet during Saturday night dances. On nights when dances were held eager children would loiter by their gates in the hope that they would be the lucky recipients of chocolates and lollies thrown by the soldiers as they passed by and ferries even made special late-night trips to take revellers back to Hobart.
Sometimes the increased numbers created disharmony. Maurice Potter remembers when some members of the camp at Fort Direction, a little worse for wear after attending a local dance, pelted turkeys grown on his father's property with stones, killing a number of them. The next day damages were quietly paid and life went on as before.
Like his grandfather, Shelby grew up listening to the stories of the area...
"When my grandfather was a child he was told there were many unexploded missiles on the beach nearby."
... although nowadays, with the Fort having been closed to the public from the mid 1970s onwards, the stories told might not have the same elements of excitement and risk.
Pillbox artwork by Owen, 11 years