A DUNSTER man who dedicated his time and energy to looking after a children’s playground in the town is to be remembered through the ’talking sunflowers’ he often spoke about.

An appeal to raise money for a pair of the special flowers as part of new play equipment in his memory has reached £1,096 of its £1,500 target.

Martin Harborne, former chairman of the Packhorse Playground Committee, worked tirelessly to maintain the playground, spending hours mowing the grass, trimming hedges and fundraising to keep the place open and safe for children to enjoy.

He died a few months ago and the committee thought about having a bench in his memory, then decided on the sunflowers instead.

“They are two flowers connected by an underground pipe, which enables children in different parts of the playground to speak into them and talk with those at the other end,” said Ruth Bishop, secretary of the committee.

“Martin spent time looking after his grandchildren in Chippenham and was very taken with the talking sunflowers there – at most meetings he would find a way of mentioning them.

“When he died, we thought it would be lovely to have a bench in his memory, then someone said ’I tell you what, those flowers he was always talking of – that would really mean Martin!’

“Now we’re raising funds for it and are almost there,” said Ruth.

She said the ongoing maintenance of the playground is totally through donations and volunteers and the committee works hard to just keep it open.

“Any more play equipment plans go on the back burner, usually, but this is really well worth doing, to remember Martin by,” she said.

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