Mary Harding

By Margaret Robinson

Mary Harding nee Gidman

Saturday evening, 31st July 2021 a shining star left us to find her place in Heaven. Mary was born in Southlands Hospital, Shoreham on 22nd December 1947. The younger sister to Philip and Margaret. From the moment she was brought home she never lived anywhere but Arundel, starting in Bond Street, then 10 Mount Pleasant until she married Michael Harding in 1968 After a short while they moved to Wood View, Arundel and around 1978 moved to Arun Terrace, Ford Road. She always said she could not contemplate living anywhere else. Just after her 5th birthday Mary started at St. Philip’s school, her first teacher being Miss (Mary) Corbyn and under the headmastership of Mr Millard. A good number of her classmates at that time remained close friends throughout her life. Around this same time she joined the Arundel School of Dancing doing ballet and tap dancing with Miss Davis as teacher and Mrs Vincent on the piano. At 11 it was time to move on – St. Philip Howard school at Barnham had just been completed and Mary was in the first intake. A fact of which she was very proud, to be in at the beginning.

Mary Harding

Mary’s first job on leaving school was in the office of Hare’s Garage, Littlehampton working there for a few years until she was offered the position at Lloyd’s Bank in the High Street. This was her defining moment as, apart from about a year working in the office of Gray & Rowsell garage in Littlehampton when her son Philip was small, she returned to the bank, worked her way up and achieved her promotion to become the Manager of the branch where she stayed for over 30 years until her retirement just before Christmas 2007. It does seem as though most of the residents in the Arundel area knew her from this time.

As if this wasn’t enough for Mary a great deal of her ‘leisure’ time was spent in or around the Cathedral. This was where Mary was baptised, made her first communion, was confirmed and became a member of the Guild of St. Agnes. Corpus Christi was always a great feast as in her young life. as was walking in the procession from the Cathedral to the quadrangle in the Castle and back again. In those days the children took great delight in walking over the carpet of flowers. Little would Mary have known then what a huge part she would play in the floral arrangements and the carpet of flowers. For a number of years until her last she was instrumental in garnering flower arrangers for the large floral displays, deciding with the team

Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes

Carpet of Flowers 2019

on the ‘theme’ for the year, ordering the vast array of blooms and in Corpus Christi week creating some of the arrangements and helping to lay the carpet of flowers, then, helping to count the monetary donations from visitors from the Wednesday and Thursday. Quite a feat. Mary was also part of the rota for weekly counting of the monies at the Cathedral and latterly volunteering in the Cathedral shop.

Her faith was very strong and she also had the privilege, after she retired from work, to go on the annual Lourdes Pilgrimage as a helper. Something she greatly enjoyed and in 2016, the last time she went, was to witness the great honour of two benches dedicated to Lady Sarah Clutton being installed in the domain in Lourdes.

Another venture was being one of the founding members of the ‘Walking for Pleasure’ group which ran for 13 years. She also joined the Arundel Flower Arranging group, and worked part time in Belinda’s Tea Rooms in Tarrant Street. There was still something missing in her life and it wasn’t until the birth of her first granddaughter, Fern, in 2012 and her second granddaughter, Gwen, in 2015 that she felt her life was complete. If there was ever a doting grandmother, it was Mary, and she was so often seen pushing one or the other of ‘her girls’ around the town or down to Swanbourne Lake. She was in her element. She adored them and they her.

The shock to her only son Philip, Faith and all her family and friends in April last year when she received her diagnosis cannot be described. She carried on stoically until the end. She died peacefully, with Philip at her side, on that Saturday evening, 31st July 2021.

She is so greatly missed by so many people, God bless her, may she rest in peace.