.
Character Profiles > Bridget Parker Eloise Mignon

Bridget [Didge] Parker 2007-
Parents: Steve and Miranda Parker (adoptive)
Siblings: Riley

Tomboy Bridget Parker, affectionately known as Didge, was adopted, along with her 12-year-old brother Riley, at the age of 6, by Steve and Miranda Parker. Dressed for their first meeting in a pretty pink dress, Bridget soon made her feelings about that known when, after going home with her new parents, she ruined the dress by playing in mud puddles. Over the ten years that followed, outspoken Bridget easily bonded with Steve and Miranda, soon coming to think of them as her parents, but Riley struggled, believing that he’d only been adopted because they felt obligated to keep the siblings together. Following in the footsteps of vet Steve, Riley had almost completed a veterinary sciences course at university when he upped and left, deciding to spend some time surfing. Meanwhile, Steve and Miranda made plans to leave their Sydney home and move up to Melbourne, where Steve’s younger brother Ned was living with his young son, Mickey. They were soon joined by Riley, who admitted that he'd been keeping away because he'd always felt that Steve and Miranda had only wanted to adopt Didge, taking Riley on with her due to obligation. After learning that this simply wasn't true, Riley agreed to move to Erinsborough and give family life another try.

Within days of arriving in town, Bridget had befriended one of Ned’s Ramsay Street neighbours, Zeke Kinski, and was making plans to train with his all-male football team, the Erinsborough Dingoes. Though Zeke was happy to have her there, his team-mate Justin Hunter was annoyed to have a girl on the team and told Zeke to get rid of her. When Didge found out what was going on, it became a war of words between her and Justin, and it wasn't long before Declan Napier, another new student at the school, got involved, defending Bridget. She warned Declan that she could easily defend herself, refusing to have anything to do with him, since he had found her eight-year-old cousin Mickey when he ran away from him, and used him to commit petty crimes. Declan insisted that he'd changed, and had only broken the law to get money to help his single mum pay the bills and, after learning of his difficult upbringing, Didge started to soften towards him. When Bridget accidentally let go of a rope during an abseiling excursion, causing Declan to plummet to the ground and injure his shoulder, the pair came to an uneasy truce, though it was clear to most other people that, despite the constant insults, they were falling for each other. Meanwhile, Didge was struggling with her self-image, wanting to play football but worried that Miranda wanted a different kind of daughter. In the end, Bridget broke down on her mum's shoulder, and Miranda insisted that she was the one with the problem, and Didge should never change the person she was for anyone.

When Declan started sneaking out, joyriding in the sports car that had been a secret 17th birthday gift from his older brother, Oliver, Didge soon joined him, determined to prove that girls made just as good drivers. When the pair were then challenged to a drag race by Justin and his brothers, Wayne and Dale, they accepted, and were promptly run off the road. In revenge, Didge threw her bottle of water over them and the interior of the car, and a stunned Declan quickly drove off. Though the Hunter brothers tracked them down, Didge and Declan escaped on foot, later returning to find that his car had been vandalised. Bridget emptied her bank account to help him get the car fixed up, but he returned the money to her, and accepted a challenge from Justin for another race. After telling her parents she was going to the library, Didge went to meet Declan and the pair took part in the second race, only for it to be halted when the police gave chase. As the went off after the Hunter brothers, Didge and Declan thought they had avoided punishment, only to return home and find the police waiting. With Declan facing prosecution, Didge was banned from seeing him and struggled with the silent treatment from her parents. Just as Miranda was starting to soften to her daughter, she saw a text message from Declan, asking to meet her. Didge insisted that it wasn't part of a plan, and she didn't intend to meet him, but later they saw each other at the park, where Bridget told him to stay away from her, as he'd caused enough problems. As Didge walked home, tears in her eyes, she tripped and fell into the road, straight into the path of a car, being driven by neighbour Susan Kinski. A tired Susan had blacked out and hit Bridget, before driving off, not realising what she had done.

The incident had been witnessed by young Mickey, who later told Ned that he'd seen Declan's car driving away. Since nobody knew that Susan was using the car because her husband Karl was test driving it for a few days, Declan became the prime suspect. Meanwhile, Bridget had been rushed to hospital, where she had undergone an emergency operation for a bleed on her brain. After pulling through the operation, she remained unconscious and, as they waited for news, Steve, Miranda and Riley were horrified to hear that Susan had come forward, realising that she was the one who had run Bridget down. As Bridget lay in a coma, Riley used his cadetship at the newspaper to express his anger, using a photo of Susan with a bottle of wine in her hand to make it look like she'd been drink-driving, when infact she was just carrying the shopping inside. The article caused an outraged local to throw a brick through the Kennedy-Kinskis' front window, hitting Susan's stepdaughter, Rachel, who Didge had been growing close to. With Rachel also stuck in hospital, she went to sit by Bridget's bed and pleaded with her to wake up, and was shocked when she felt Didge's hand move. The following day, Bridget woke up properly with her family around her, unable to remember the accident or feel anything down the left side of her body. At first, Steve and Miranda told her that it was only temporary, but Didge forced Riley to be honest with her and he admitted that it might be temporary, but there was also a chance that she could be permanently disabled.

Magic Moments
Episode 5261: The Parkers' Arrival

Biography by Steve