One of island’s characters given a most fitting funeral

ONE of Guernsey’s great characters was given the send-off he wanted.

Lorry driver Geoff Simon and Tom Brouard’s great-grandaughter, Florence Hemery, 12, with other family members sat in the vintage lorry which took Tom Brouard’s coffin to Forest Church for his funeral. (Pictures by Chris George Photography)

Forest Church was packed for the funeral of Tom Brouard, who died on 25 September, aged 82.

In a eulogy, which Mr Brouard had written himself and which was read by Peter Brehaut, he said he had had a great life and ‘had played a lot’.

Mr Brouard was a familiar character in many aspects of island life.

After working for his father in greenhouses, he was licensee at The Albert Arms, now The Drunken Duck, for four years in the 1970s.

He was a porter at St Pierre Park Hotel when it opened in the early 1980s and continued in the job until he was in his late 70s.

At the start of the 1970s he helped to revive the Rocquaine Regatta and he was almost a fixture in pageants at the West Show, often the one to end up in the water.

‘My father had no enemies and he was everybody’s friend,’ said Mr Brouard’s daughter, Emma.

‘One of my nieces said once that she thought Poppy was famous as everybody seemed to know him.’

Tom Brouard, centre, with his Old Bike Gang colleague and friend, Lloyd Robilliard, left.

The Old Bike Gang was another of Mr Brouard’s passions. Nowadays the group often travel in a former H W Le Ray tomato truck which is now owned by Richard Heaume of the Guernsey Occupation Museum.

It was that truck which was chosen to take Mr Brouard on his last journey to Forest Church and three of his four daughters – Emma, Sophie and Rebecca – kept him company in the back along with his six grandchildren.

His other daughter, Rachel, is in Australia and unable to travel due to Covid restrictions.

Miss Brouard said the Forest was the family church. Her grandmother and great-grandfather, Clement, were both active in the church and had dedications within it.

She said her father’s eulogy was a bit of a mish-mash, with some bits seemingly in the wrong order, but people enjoyed it.

‘It was very open and it was my dad,’ she said. ‘He brought fun to everything he did.’

In his eulogy, Mr Brouard had written that he had four lovely daughters ‘and gosh I’ll miss them when I’ve gone’.

His two grandsons, George Simmons, 22, and Isaac Evans, 26, helped carry his coffin.

Tom Brouard’s coffin on it way to Forest Church in a former tomato lorry.

Miss Brouard said the response to her father’s death had been comforting to them all.

‘There were people putting things about him on social media who we had no idea had known him,’ she said.

‘A man who stayed at St Pierre Park Hotel on holiday every Christmas turned up at the funeral unexpectedly, which was so nice.’