Guildford Remembers Gordon Bridger

Published on: 19 May, 2022
Updated on: 24 May, 2022

Gordon Bridger’s memorial service at Holy Trinity Church

By Martin Giles

An invited congregation of around 200 attended a memorial service at Holy Trinity Church in Guildford High Street for Gordon Bridger, the former Mayor and Alderman of Guildford who died in November 2020.

Attendance at his funeral service in the following December was constrained by Covid restrictions.

In the congregation was Labour politician Emily Thornberry who grew up in Guildford, pictured here with Canon Cotton.

Among those present yesterday (May 18) were his widow Jean, his daughter Diane and his son Jeremy.

The service was conducted by Canon Robert Cotton and a eulogy was given by Guildford’s Remembrancer Matthew Alexander a close friend of Alderman Bridger’s.

Jean Bridger tells of her own memories of her husband with whom she “hardly had a cross word other than on Brexit”! Behind is Matthew Alexander. Argentine flag bunting was used to represent Gordon Bridger’s country of birth.

After the service the congregation was invited to a reception at the Guildhall where several relatives and friends spoke of their memories of Gordon Bridger and the Guildford Shakespeare Company performed an adapted scene from Taming of the Shrew.

Gordon Bridger

The gathering ended with a former work colleague reading Robert Burns’ Epitaph on my own Friend:

An honest man here lies at rest,
As e’er God with His image blest:
The friend of man, the friend of truth;
The friend of age, and guide of youth:
Few hearts like his, with virtue warm’d,
Few heads with knowledge so inform’d:
If there’s another world, he lives in bliss;
If there is none, he made the best of this.