Steve Woodger, 10/01/1955 - 16/02/2016

Steve was an artisan with a multitude of talents. He and his wife Judith moved from Kent to Ludlow, then to Pembridge around the mid to late 1980s. Although Steve was incredibly skilled in many creative and artistic ways, he had a butterfly attitude to life. He would never concentrate on one thing for very long. One day he would be making stained glass windows for folks in the village then, a week or two later, he would be creating dolls houses in the shape of some of the black and white village properties. From sculpting traditional Green Man heads in metal to painting landscapes, he achieved a very high standard in everything he did. Steve was unambitious and lived his life by the simple tenet carpe diem (seize the day). He started a bric-a-brac shop in the centre of the village which just about made enough to pay his bar bill at the New Inn. He spent little time in the shop: instead, he left everything priced up and installed an ‘Honesty Box’ with a notice asking customers to take what they wanted and leave the money in the box! The shop was kept stocked with items his wife, Judith, picked up at car boot sales plus gifts of unwanted items from his friends. Steve was a superb cook, especially barbecues, and many in the village will remember his well attended barbecue parties. He was first class at making pizza and was truly generous in that he often brought freshly cooked pizza to the Market Hall at lunchtime to share with his friends. Sadly, Judith, his wife died of cancer in 2013 and after her death, regrettably, his increasing addiction to alcohol resulted in his early demise in 2016. He and his wife are buried in a green field site in North Herefordshire.

By Ken Wheeler