The can, thrown out among goods discarded to lighten the aeroplane so it could take off again from Albury racecourse, was picked up by Bill Murray, a builder then aged 34 and working on the Hume dam construction.

“He put a handle on it and made a work mug out of it for a few years,” his son David, of Glenroy, said. 

“Dad always had this hanging up in his workshop and he told me quite a few times that he got this out of the Uiver when it landed here in Albury.”

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Mr Murray said his father was on a bus of workers headed for the dam but stopped by floodwaters.

“So the bus driver turned back and brought the men back to the racetrack and they got out and they assisted to help push the plane on to the timber planks,” he said.

“This is the story I’ve been told.”

The workers’ assistance is a detail Uiver historian Noel Jackling has heard before, although finding a contemporary written account is proving difficult. 

Mr Murray read in The Border Mail of Mr Jackling’s search for Uiver mementoes and decided to make contact.

“They can have the mug if they want it for the museum,” Mr Murray said.