Our Name

“When I was a wee lad I grew up in a stereotypical suburban household with my two older brothers who, along with a father who went to work in senior management, had a tireless mother that stayed at home to look after all of us.

As much as a child could think so, I used to think we were financially successful, with a summer holiday each year and a car change every few. I felt lucky, and I was.

However, the memory of my childhood was not the reality that my mother faced, as she would later confide in me prior to her death.

She would admit to me that she would spend the good part of her entire adult life worrying that she and my father were not saving enough for their future, but she would always face the same counter argument that ‘They would always be alright in the end’.

When I now search my memory I also recall this statement being made to my mother, and this on reflection would be my first real experience of money and one’s attitude towards it.

In truth, it was only following my mother’s diagnosis with terminal cancer that she would gain personal control of her financial position and, in her words, secure her version of financial independence.

Following a life insurance pay-out, courtesy of the policy’s Terminal Illness clause, my mother would have, for the first time in her life, a meaningful amount of money that belonged to her.

She would use this money to leave her controlling husband and take control of the life transition placed in front of her. She was able to face her impending mortality in control, and with freedom.

The result was that for the last few years of her life she blossomed into the real Maggie Broome nee Longhurst, like a chrysalis turning into a beautiful butterfly; a rebirth.

Witnessing this would have a profound impact on how I viewed money and its true effect on people’s lives.

Years later, when I sat down with a piece of paper to map out the launch of my new financial planning business, I decided I wanted to build a business that I myself would have referred my mother to at that moment of challenge and personal trauma.

A financial planning business that you could trust to support you, no matter what life had thrown at you – both positive and negative.

A business that had your back, always.

It led to the launch of Longhurst.”