Bruce William Bridgewood (51-57) was born in Hull in January 1941, the only child of a RAF navigator who, after serving throughout World War II, was posted to various countries overseas, hence Bruce was sent as a boarder to Pocklington at the age of eight.

He left school in 1957 to join a Forces scheme to encourage public service in African colonies, where he then served as a mounted policeman with the British South African Police in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

His interest in the Church began while he was still at school but developed further under the influence of ffrench-Beytagh, a famous anti-Apartheid campaigner, then Dean of Salisbury.

Now married with two children, Bruce moved to South Africa in 1965, where he trained at St Paul’s Theological College, Grahamstown; he was made deacon in 1967 and ordained priest the following year in Cape Town Cathedral, thereafter serving as an assistant priest in parishes around Cape Town.

In 1971, he took a break from his priestly ministry, working as a commercial property agent. By the time Bruce returned to England (1977), he had married his second wife, by whom he had two daughters. Living in Brighton, he continued to work in property, but resumed his ministry as a priest, serving as an unpaid curate in a Sussex parish.

After another divorce in 1985, Bruce married for a third time. The couple now lived in London with their two sons, while Bruce assisted in various parishes, including St Matthew’s, Westminster, before becoming full-time parish priest of St Peter-le-Poer in north London.

After retirement – and a third divorce – Bruce moved, briefly, to High Wycombe and then to Folkestone, where he assisted in the parish of St Peter’s, soon becoming highly appreciated, as he was throughout his ministry, as an inspiring preacher and devoted priest.

Fr Bruce died peacefully from respiratory problems on 5 January, supported by family members and the sacraments of the Church. A beautiful and moving Requiem Mass and thanksgiving for his life were held in Folkestone.

Bruce will be sorely missed by many who enjoyed his lively company, his witty and entertaining conversation – in which some of the views and language were more reminiscent of his Yorkshire origins than of his clerical profession – his uninhibited enjoyment of the good things of life and his openness to and interest in new people and experiences.

But those who saw only this apparently bluff and extrovert exterior were missing the other Bruce – a serious thinker who wrestled with life’s existential problems, a voracious reader (including of much contemporary poetry), and a scholar who earned a master’s degree in Theology from King’s College, London, at an age when many people have retired.

His last connection with the school which he first saw as a lonely little boy of eight soon after the Second World War was when, on the occasion of the School’s 500th anniversary, as a private OP initiative, he fulfilled the duty imposed by Dr Dowman on his scholars in his Charter and celebrated a Sung Mass of Requiem for the Founder and his kin - and all the School’s departed – in a London church. 

(Geoffrey Cox, 51-59)