WROUGHTON farmer and member of the Parish Council, Mike Hinder, died last week after losing his nine month battle with cancer.

The 70-year-old was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma last August, but two months later he returned to have a minor operation and doctors found he had cholangiocarinoma – cancer in his bile duct.

At the end of January he had an invasive nine-hour operation and spent a month recovering in hospital in Oxford.

On May 13 he was expected to start his first course of chemotherapy, but when doctors did a final check they found that the cancer had spread throughout his body.

His daughter Celia Robertson, 29, said: “He wasn’t going to tell my brother and I at first. We were going to a wedding the following weekend and he wanted us to enjoy ourselves and tell us after. But my brother called him because he was supposed to have gone for chemo, and wanted to know how it went.

“We knew before he went for his operation there was only a 30 per cent chance he would live any more than five years, but it all came in dribs and drabs. There wasn’t a particular point when the news hit us. We just got on with it, went from one thing to the other.

“I think he just wanted to make the most of the time he had left.”

Mike grew progressively worse over the next week, and on May 24 he was taken to the Great Western Hospital, where he died on May 29.

Celia said: “You could see hour by hour he just got worse and worse.

“Every single person who was there were amazing. They were just so kind and so efficient.”

After growing up in Chippenham and training at Lackham College, Mike spent several years farming in Canada, America and Winchester before taking on Costow Farm in 1984 when it was still a dairy farm.

He expanded the farm to more than 110 acres, and earned the nickname ‘Baron’ Hinder. As he grew older the life-long STFC fan downsized the farm to its original 57 acres and switched from dairy to beef.

Celia said: “Farming was everything to him. He was always working the farm. I think you could write what he didn’t know about farming on the back of a stamp.”

Mike was also a long-standing member of the Parish Council after joining in 2003.

On hearing the news, they posted on their website: “Wroughton Parish Council are very sad to announce the death in service of Coun Mike Hinder.

“As a local farmer he brought a different perspective to the Parish Council and would always put forward practical solutions to problems. Mike would always brighten up a Council Meeting with his quick wit.”

Mike’s funeral will take place next Thursday at Kingsdown Crematorium at 3pm. Family flowers only. Donations to the Mike Hinder Memorial Wroughton Charity Duck Race.