Nicholas and Diana Bridge

A former New Zealand High Commissioner recently spent a week in the Island learning more about those who knew him and his parents when he lived here as a boy.

Nicholas Bridge laid flowers at his mother’s grave in the St Brelade Church cemetery, visited his old primary school, learned more about two women who cared for him all those years ago and met members of the Jersey Motorcycle and Light Car Club, in which his father was involved.

Mr Bridge, who was accompanied by his wife, Diana, a published poet in New Zealand, lived in Jersey for a few years after he moved to the Island with his father and invalid mother soon after the Second World War.

He left Jersey with his father in 1948, the year of his mother’s death, and eventually went on to become New Zealand High Commissioner. It was while he was in Delhi that he became friends with Jerseyman Colin Perchard, who was at the time serving as Minister, Cultural Affairs in the British High Commission, and his wife Liz.

Nicholas and Diana Bridge at his mother's grave in St Brelade's Church cemetry

Mr and Mrs Bridge spent the week with the Perchards, making an early visit to St Brelade’s Church cemetery where Mr Bridge’s mother is buried. Mr Perchard had arranged for a headstone to be carved for the grave, where Mr Bridge placed flowers.

He also received a call from Gladys Syvret, who remembered the two women who looked him after his mother died, and when she was a 20-year-old, working at the RM Stores, in St Brelade, near to where they lived.

He visited La Moye Primary School, with the head teacher taking him to see his old classroom.

In addition, he was delighted to meet Ken Thompson, of the Jersey Motorcycle and Light Car Club, who produced old programmes from the 1940s with his father’s name in. He had even found a photograph of his father starting a race at Bouley Bay in 1949, which it is believed was the first-ever in which Stirling Moss competed.

As well as discovering more about his Jersey connections, Mr Bridge enjoyed walks and drives around the Island. ‘I was only six when I left in 1949, but memories flooded back – I remembered the lanes and hedgerows and the beaches where we used to go – St Brelade is one that was always special.’

He added that Jersey not only looked lovely, but had a vibrant community, and that he and his wife had had a wonderful stay. ‘It’s been everything I’d hoped for and much more,’ he said.