OBITUARY

Alan James Dennis Whistler

(April 18, 1921 - May 5, 2017)

ALAN Whistler was born at Goleigh Farm, Newton Valence, in 1921, and was one of two brothers and three sisters.

His father managed different farms in Wiltshire and Somerset and Alan worked for him after leaving school at 16, giving him much early experience.

In 1937 Alan won a scholarship to Plumpton Agricultural College, Sussex, where he remained until 1948.

Alan progressed from student to permanent staff, training and lecturing and holding the post of assistant bailiff.

He met his future wife Kay there in 1940 after she arrived as one of many Land Girls. They married in 1943.

In 1948, it was time for a change and he moved to the Broome Hall Estate, in Surrey, to manage its 750 acres.

The estate was the home of the very well know Guernsey herd that over the period from 1945 to 1955 won virtually every trophy available to Guernseys.

In 1954 the owner sold the estate and moved the whole lot - animals, machinery and Alan and family - to Okehampton in Devon by British Railways from the nearest station to the respective farms.

Large machiney, such as an Allis Chalmers combine harvester and Massey Harris baler, did not easily fit into the narrow lanes of Devon.

The first year saw a rainfall of 65 inches and similar amounts thereafter.

In the first year 2,500 bales of rushes were made from roughly 10 acres and used for bedding.

In 1959 the owner retired and sold up and Alan, along with Kay and the family of two sons and a daughter, moved to the Blackmoor Estate as farm manager, just down the road from his birthplace in Newton Valence.

He thoroughly enjoyed this period of his life, working for the Selborne family on a farm that, at the time, had about 600 cattle, 500 acres of cereals, about 40 acres of hops, half a dozen working horses and a large workforce.

Alan was asked to, and did, get involved with the village, which resulted in being the chairman of various committees and a church warden of Blackmoor church.

He also became chairman of the Alton National Farmers’ Union and the County National Farmers’ Union commercial committee.

It was with the National Farmers’ Union that he became known as “Mr Pipeline” because of his efforts to secure proper and equitable procedures for the installation of pipelines from refineries through agricultural land, which was eventually turned into a national pipeline policy.

Alan retired in 1984, and with Kay went off to live in Lee-on-the-Solent.

But he returned to the countryside, to live in Selborne, in 1993. Kay passed away in 2009.

Alan is survived by his sons and daughter.