Fr Joseph Sunn, the founder of the parish of Our Lady of Lourdes, is buried in Waterfall Road cemetery. He died in 1953 and was buried in the same site as his mother, Mary Sunn. However, as you can see from the photograph, the gravestone had deteriorated over the years. So the Parish Council decided to see what we could do to renovate it.

Now, it so happens that my friendly Australian brother-in-law is a stone mason and he agreed to take a look and see what he could do. A couple of hours and some very vigorous scrubbing, scraping, chiselling and general cleaning later, produced something of a transformation.

The inscription is still faint, but it is at least legible in most places, and the chi rho stands out clearly. At the Parish Annual General Meeting we decided, rather than trying to return the gravestone to its original pristine condition, to allow it to remain in its cleaned state - cared for but accepting that 50 years have passed since Fr Sunn's death.