Mr and Mrs Thomas Farmer
Residents of 3 School Lane
The Cottage where they once lived belonged to a row of cottages once in School Lane. Their names were Alice M. and Thomas L. Farmer.
Alice and Thomas FARMER married at Kingston Bagpuize Church on 30th August 1919.
Alice was the daughter of Walter and Sarah HENLEY and in 1901 the family were living in Fyfield when Alice was three years of age. At the time of the 1901 census she had a sister, Florence and three brothers, Walter, Arthur and Albert but she was later to have further two sisters.
Until 1935 whilst the Kennels were at Kingston Bagpuize, Mr Farmer was the Knackerman. Tony Drew tells, that they used to take the dead horses to feed the dogs. Mr Farmer used to take the horses in and he used to slit them open and all the stomach and everything would just go down into a slurry hole underneath and the rats used to feed on this and when they moved of course the food dried up so we got invaded with rats.
Mr Farmer swept the road and his wife Alice worked in the house at Mrs Palmers then went to the Post Office and Bakery to work for Ruth Garrett for years. Ruth recalls that 'Mrs Farmer lived in the cottages at Kingston, up School Lane'.
Another villager has said:
There used to be a chap who lived up School Lane called Tom Farmer. He was the road man and he used to keep these roads spotless and the ditches clear. He used to be up and down all the time. You used to go down the Hanney Road, you know how long and straight it is, and you could see a little dot in the distance. He used to go all the way up there and back. He seemed like an old man when we were young children.
The Broughton sisters’ [of Town Pond] grandfather and Tom Farmer who lived down School Lane were the two roadmen in Kingston and Southmoor two roadmen in Kingston and Southmoor. They went round cleaning ditches. They carried everything on an old wheelbarrow.