Thank you so much for the wonderful article, "Story behind signs of the times" (The Argus, September 28), because our unique pub sign heritage is often overlooked.
I am a signmaker who specialises in pub signs. One I painted last year was "The Dinkum" in Polegate. It was originally called the Polegate Inn but during the First World War it was used by a regiment of Australian soldiers who were rehabilitating after a gas attack on the Western Front.
They were hospitalised in nearby Willingdon. Part of their treatment was to walk two miles a day and the Polegate Inn, by a stroke of good fortune, was exactly a mile away.
As the troops made the pub their own hospital extension, locals nicknamed the pub the "Dinkum". It was 60 years later the licensee finally relented and officially changed the pubs name to The Dinkum.
In my sign, an Australian soldier is being helped over a stile by a nurse with the Downs in the background.
I realise working on local pub signs is an honour and I always make sure some local view or a historical scene is preserved in my work.
-Keith Pettit, East Hoathly, near Lewes
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