Another Christmas is here - they come around (it seems) at an ever increasing pace as we get older...
Before wishing readers of The English Apple Man a happy few days of festivity, our industry has recently lost two very special people.
On Tuesday a packed Crematorium at Barham in Kent remembered a truly brave man. Mike Barnett has spent a lifetime in the fruit industry inspiring many of the new developments in fruit production. Four years ago he was diagnosed with a terminal illness and told he had only months before he would succumb to the inevitable. But Mike was a fighter, he always enjoyed a challenge; this was not one he would have chosen, but as with any other challenge he faced during his life, Mike demonstrated a positive attitude throughout, continuing to work and in response to the question - how are you Mike? his response 'with a smile' was always; "well I am still here" and even up to this season's end, he was still showing an interest in the harvest at Newmafruit Farms where he had spent the last 10 years as the technical consultant. Mike only gave into the inevitable during November and passed peacefully away in mid December.
Poignantly it was at the funeral service that news of the passing of another member of the fruit fraternity circulated; the news that Hugh Lowe, a giant in the fruit industry died on Sunday. As the Patriarch of Hugh Lowe Farms he had taken the family strawberry growing business onto another level. Hugh Lowe started fruit growing after leaving school in 1949 at Barons Place in Mereworth Kent.
Hugh was a founder member of Kentish Garden a cooperative marketing strawberries. In the 1980's Hugh became Chairman of KG and oversaw innovations in those first two decades which included direct sales to the emerging supermarkets. Since then KG has become Berry Gardens the major UK supplier of soft fruit.
Hugh was involved in all aspects of country life; The NFU, East Malling Research, Agricultural Wages Board, and many other activities essential to the smooth operation of farming and horticulture.
Hugh Lowe Farms Ltd, of which he was Chairman, is now owned and run by his daughter and son-in-law, Marion and Jon Regan.
Hugh retired to Dorset, but continued to take an active interest in Hugh Lowe Farms, Berry Gardens and East Malling Research.
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It is now 11.30pm on Christmas Eve and as I write this, I am enjoying Christmas Carols on the TV - tomorrow will be a quiet day with my wife and mother, (and our Cocker Spaniel Poppy), before a much more lively Boxing Day at our son and daughter-in-law's home with two of our grandchildren. My daughter and her husband - and two more of our precious grandchildren live in Derbyshire and it will be New Year before we venture North to enjoy a few days with them.
It only remains for me to wish all my readers; A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS........
Take care
The English Apple Man