Some reflections on Geoff Hardy, long time Green Party member, who sadly passed away recently.

When I moved to Shrewsbury in 2000 I became a member of the Mid and North Shropshire Green Party which had just started up, inspired by a public meeting with Caroline Lucas, who was a Member of the European Parliament in those days.

That meeting was arranged by the late John Lloyd who was a South Shropshire District Councillor for many years up to 2009 and continued to support the Shrewsbury Greens.

But Geoff Hardy had started things much earlier, in 1987 when he was the first Green Party candidate for Shrewsbury at a General Election. At that time the Green Party had fewer than 5000 members and he was one of 133 candidates at that election. (Nowadays we have ten times as many members and will be standing in every English and Welsh constituency at the coming General Election.)

He proudly told me about this pioneering achievement when we met, and was glad to see me standing for the Greens at the General Election in 2001, after a gap. (He had stood in 1992 but not in 1997. Shrewsbury’s first Labour MP was elected in 1997 but that’s another story…)

I soon learned that this was just one in Geoff’s long history of pioneering achievements – many of them for LGBT rights and representation, as described here https://lgbtshrewsbury.co.uk/

Geoff and his partner Peter organised an LGBT hustings at the General Election in 2005. It was a lively event and questions ranged from gay marriage (which was still not legal and only became so in 2013) to whether the Gay Meadow football stadium should keep its name following its imminent move to Oteley Road. I was there as the Green candidate, and as always I felt very lucky to be able to speak from my heart when advocating Green Party principles.

Shrewsbury Green Party will always be grateful to Geoff and his campaigning energy. We’re sad that he won’t be around to see us save our first General Election deposit in July, and be part of the defeat of the Shropshire Tories in May 2025.

We send our love to Peter and all Geoff’s friends and family.

Emma Bullard
Coordinator, Shrewsbury Green Party