Dear Editor,
For some months, a local voluntary group has been working with Stroud Town Council on a project to mark the many contributions of the late John Marjoram (1939–2025) to Stroud town, by installing a specially commissioned memorial bench on Stroud High Street dedicated to John’s memory.
As well as being a life-long peace campaigner, John was a very eminent local political public servant who served two separate terms as Mayor of Stroud. John also played a pivotal role in the founding and the success of our Town Council.
A local craftsman has designed and is constructing the bench, the design for which the group has seen and enthusiastically approved. The total cost will be between £5,000 and £6,000 (including installation, necessary planning permissions etc.).
There are multiple demands upon the Town Council’s budget and upon the ‘public purse’ in these difficult times of financial stringency, so we are most grateful to the Council for its generosity in helping to fund this important memorial.
This is not the easiest time to be raising money for local projects, given the ‘cost-of-living crisis’ and the recent extraordinary generosity of the people of Stroud in buying our much-treasured Heavens. But we, John’s friends and admirers, need to raise over half of the cost of this memorial bench by public donation – up to £4,000 in all.
Please give generously if you can, and help towards keeping alive for posterity the wonderful contributions that John Marjoram made at so many levels to this great town. You can contribute to the fund at https://gofund.me/76879b431 .
Thank you in anticipation for your support.
Richard House, Bernard Jarman, Louise Maclellan, Olly Mills, Laura Ridolfi, Cllr. Lucas Schoemaker
Stroud
