Hi, having never done anything with blogging before, I hope this all works. This could all be taken as a rather sad piece, but I made the sign and see it all as a happy reflection of my Dad’s life. You see that as a lifelong resident of Broome since marrying my mum June, and also being the local Joiner, he was the obvious choice.

Dad did most of the artwork except for the shield under the main sign, which I researched, also being a joiner in the family firm. My copy of the one made at Broome church, is a very accurate representation of the one there, though all the little beetle marks of unknown origin will probably be painted out over time. This, most people believe is the family shield of the De Broom (spelling almost certainly not correct) family who were the rich land owners of the time, and indeed named the village after themselves at the time, and lived in the large hall still situated in the village.

My Dad sadly died in 1999 and I decided to finish, paint, and install the sign ready for the Broome millennium celebrations, obviously during the evening of December 31st 1999. The Christmas holiday which I normally take during this traditionally slack period became very rushed, and indeed spoilt that particular Christmas as I did not see my family very much.

Anyway we achieved our goal with a really good bricklayer friend of my late Father, a man called Dan Gowland building the brick and stone plinth.

I think the sign has had one paint up since it’s installation, and still looks really good. The further sad bit is that since all this, I too now have cancer, but do not look on it as too sad, although would have liked to have remained fit enough to do the maintenance myself.

Roger Dove.