ONE of Tamworth’s best-known couples was farewelled at Calala Cottage on Sunday.
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Bladen and Del Brooke, who have spent a lifetime as volunteers and members of various Tamworth organisations, are moving to Coffs Harbour to be closer to their children.
Tamworth Regional Council mayor Col Murray, in a speech to the 100-strong gathering, thanked the couple for “the things you have done for Tamworth”.
“Even before I was mayor, I was aware of all the community work you do and the fantastic leadership you show,” Cr Murray said.
They were inaugural members of the Tamworth Historical Society about 1957 and have spent countless hours over the past 25 years helping out at the Calala Cottage museum in Denison St, which the society set up and maintains.
“Meeting people is great,” Bladen said of their weekly stints showing visitors around the quaint museum stacked with treasures of Tamworth’s past.
“You welcome them to Tamworth and hopefully point them in the right direction and try to get them to stay an extra couple of days.”
Bladen, who was born in Tamworth and schooled at West Tamworth Public and Tamworth High schools, was a prominent businessman in Tamworth after doing external study in electronics.
After beginning work at SS Radio in Peel St, he worked at Regan’s Pty Ltd (in Lower St, now Kable Ave) for nine years prior to taking over the AWA (an Australian electronics manufacturer) franchise in West Tamworth’s Bridge St, before building new premises on the other side of the street (where Kevin Bartlett Cycles and others now operate).
This was called Bladen Brooke Electronics and was one of several businesses he formed, including Radelec and New England Security Services, as well as Sound Components, with premises in Brisbane St, just down from The Northern Daily Leader.
After selling Bladen Brooke Electronics, he moved into public address systems.
As well as running his several businesses, Bladen was invited to join the Lions Club of Tamworth in 1958, became president in 1967 and is a life member, was a board member of Tamworth Base Hospital for 14 years and served a term as a Tamworth City councillor in the 1980s, as well as many years on the chamber of commerce.
Later, Bladen, along with Arthur Baker, formed what’s now known as the Tamworth Regional Film and Sound Archive, which at present has an exhibition featuring places and faces from the region’s past at the Tamworth Regional Gallery.
He became a volunteer in 1990 at the Tamworth Information Centre, and Del is among the three original volunteers from when it was formed in 1988.
Del was an inaugural and long-standing member of Tamworth Day VIEW Club, including a term as president in 1977.
In 2010, both were recipients of Order of Australia Medals for their community work.
Del arrived in Tamworth, via Inverell High School and Armidale Teachers’ College, to take up her first appointment as a school teacher at Nemingha.
“I came to Tamworth with the 1955 flood and have had a love affair with it ever since,” she said.
“I couldn’t get to the school for days because of the flood and had to sit in my boarding house accommodation for three days twiddling my thumbs.”
She loved her three years at Nemingha school – “the Nemingha people were fantastic” – then another year at Tamworth Infants, before taking time off to raise their children.
Del had met Bladen after playing tennis at the old Tamworth Tennis Club.
She was living near Bladen Brooke Electronics at the time and assumed the business was owned by two people.
“Are you the Bladen or the Brooke?” were her first ever words to her future husband.
Nonetheless, a romance blossomed and they married at Narrabri in 1958.
They have three children – Kim in Brisbane, Anthea in Sydney and Daron in Coffs Harbour – six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, with another one due next month.
When their children began school life, Del worked as a casual teacher for nine years, helping out part-time working with Bladen’s business, before a 10-year stint with the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and then at Skillshare (now Joblink Plus) as a tutor in literacy.
“I love Tamworth and it will be a huge wrench to leave, but it’s a big adventure and you’ve got to look forward,” she said.
She’ll particularly miss Calala Cottage and their fellow volunteers.
“We love that place. It’s become part of us and we’ll miss that,” she said.
“Anything we have done is because we love what we do.”
As a parting gift to Tamworth, Del has written a history on the 36 mayors of Tamworth from 1876 to 2010 – Tamworth – Borough to Regional Capital.