Roger Burg
He was born in Stonham Aspal, Suffolk, but the family later moved to Watford, where he attended Rickmansworth Grammar School. He trained as a teacher at Stockwell College, then located at Bromley. He worked as an art teacher in secondary schools, before taking up a career in IT. Having moved to Redhill he was one of the founders of Redhill Area Gay Society (RAGS). In 2001 he moved to Purley to live with Ross Burgess, whom he had met at a QGO weekend in 1998. He joined the committee of Croydon Area Gay Society and was a founder member of Aurora (Croydon's LGBT police consultation group) and Silver Rainbow. In 2002 Roger and Ross had a London Registered Partnership.
During the campaign to introduce civil partnerships, Roger had the idea of reenacting the adelphopoiesis ceremonies which the church had used at one time to unite people of the same sex. He and others took part in several reenactments, with Roger vested as a Greek Orthodox priest. Roger and Ross registered their own civil partnership on 21 December 2005 (the first day the law permitted it) and they converted the partnership to a marriage in 2015.
For several years Roger took a leading part in Croydon's events to mark IDAHO. He was the main inspiration behind the 2014 IDAHO event, branded as "One Love" for which he devised ingenious displays featuring local churches and LGBT groups.
In February 2017, a few weeks before his death, he received the Mayor of Croydon’s Award for Community Campaigning, signed by the Mayor, Cllr Wayne Trakas-Lawlor, which cited his “Outstanding Service and contribution to the LGBT+ community of Croydon”.
