IF you have ever driven between Swindon and Highworth along the A361, you’ve passed the bungalow, farm and shop owned by Ted Haynes.
Farming has been in the Haynes family for generations. The 87-year-old’s grandfather bought the 100 acres of Red Down Farm from Arkells in 1927 then built a bungalow on the land.
After leaving school at 15 in the 1950s, Ted started working for the family while his father worked at West Mill Farm and his mother rose through the ranks as a colonel in the army.
He said: “I worked on the farm for a long time and Gran suggested I rent it and do it all myself, so I did! I bought all the stock, the machines, the cows. She left me part of it and my mother gave me her share. Now I own all of it, plus another 20 acres near the Freke Arms.
“I’ve been farming on my own here for 60-odd years. I don’t know anything else, I thoroughly enjoy it. It’s changed now, it’s become much bigger and you need lots of land, but we do alright.
“You have to really like it and enjoy doing it so that it doesn’t matter if it’s hard work. There are difficult times but you have to hope for the best.”
His family has grown to include two sons, two daughters, seven grandchildren and a few great-grandchildren.
Ted turned an old cowshed into a shop and tea room selling local produce around 15 years ago, which his son Bert now manages along with 70 Ruby Red Devon cattle, hundreds of chickens and several turkeys.
His other son lives in another home on the land and helps with the tractor driving and farming.
Ted added: “It’s nice they are continuing in the tradition and making a good go of it, they do well.”
Ted now enjoys a well-earned retirement but still helps out when he can, particularly with the tractor work and his vegetable garden.
He used to sell rabbits, pigs and chickens to Wiltshire butchers, and train racehorses - one made it to the Grand National - and now looks after a flock of 22 sheep.
Pride of place in Ted’s front garden are sunflowers which have grown to be 14 feet tall and one foot wide after he planted the seeds in the spring.
Ted added: “My gran loved gardening and flowers, so I try to keep it like she did.”
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