"We had a lot of papers, mostly confidential, that had to be destroyed and back then we didn't have a shredder," Mr Watson recalls.

"You'd never be allowed to do that now, an 18-year-old getting that close to an incinerator. Papers would get stuck up the shoot and you'd have to get them down, we loved it."

Freshly out of school and on the job hunt in 1970, Mr Watson says he became an accidental accountant. His original plan was to become a teacher.

He had even scored himself a teachers' college scholarship before he was approached to join the Bush & Campbell Accountants firm.

"I never thought I'd go into accountancy, but then I never really knew they existed," Mr Watson said.

"I never had the burning desire to be an accountant, but now I'm glad I did.

"I often think now, what if I'd become a teacher? I couldn't see myself doing it. But there must be something in it, I've got two children who have become teachers."

When he walked through the doors of the firm for the first time, he could not have known that he would stay there in excess of 50 years.

He still recalls that feeling of nervous anxiety that gripped him on that first day.

"It was a Tuesday, the day after Australia Day, and the office was upstairs in the building across from what's now Woolworths on Gurwood Street," he said.

"There was no air-con, it was as hot as [and] I was scared. I didn't know what to expect. I just remember sitting out in the office [with the receptionist]. I stayed there in the typing pool for weeks because there was nowhere else for me to sit."

Having spent much of his career as an auditor, Mr Watson has seen plenty of businesses come and go in Wagga.

"My first audit was at the hospital and then I went to the Murrumbidgee Dairy Company, I didn't spend much time at the desk in those days," he said.

"I was an auditor for about 15 or 20 years, I did a lot at Wagga Base Hospital and The Daily Advertiser. Those are both still around, but a lot have gone, Huthwaits, David Jones, all sorts."

With his own office moving three times before arriving at its current premise in Blake Street, Mr Watson has seen a lot of internal change as well.

"When I started, a calculator was five times as big as it is now. The changes in technology have really flown," he said.

"Half a dozen of us used to share one computer, now everyone has one of their own. And they're fast ones too."