Robert Ronville Farmer
Last updated 13:32, Tuesday, 04 March 2008
Bob Farmer was one half of a well-known husband and wife team of dental surgeons in Carlisle. He was also a very good golfer – good enough to partner the legendary Henry Cotton in the centenary Open Championship when it was held at St Andrew’s in 1960.
You could say that while dentistry was his profession, golf was his passion and he was a scratch player who was champion at Carlisle Golf Club several times.
Robert Ronville Farmer was his full name, he was born in Edinburgh and educated at the George Heriot School there. At the beginning of World War Two he joined the Royal Navy and sailed on three of the most hazardous convoy routes ever.
In the Atlantic Ocean, U-boats were the ever-present menace. On the run to Malta, the German Luftwaffe presented even greater danger and on the Arctic convoys to the Russian ports of Archangel and Murmansk, the well-below-zero temperatures meant crews were constantly hacking ice off their vessels’ superstructures, to prevent them from capsizing.
For what were widely believed to be political reasons, medals were never awarded to sailors who had served on the Arctic convoys, until recently, when the Russian government belatedly did so.
This appeared to shame the British government into awarding the Arctic Star – 66 years on.
Mr Farmer was one of the dwindling number who qualified for both.
After the war, from which he astonishingly emerged unscathed, he enrolled at the Edinburgh Dental Hospital and this was where he met Mary Ormiston, a fellow student. They married in 1951.
Soon afterwards and both qualified, they arrived in Carlisle to join the J Johnson practice in Portland Square and there they remained.
Mr Farmer also worked part time in the oral surgery department at the City General Hospital and he was a member of the Cumbria Local Dental Committee for many years.
Eventually, when Mr Johnson retired, he became senior partner in the practice, which was then joined by Ian Chadwick.
He retired in 1980, after 29 years in dentistry in Carlisle and his wife also retired on the very same day.
As a working partnership, they had shared a great deal and they also shared a birthday. They were both born on February 14, St Valentine’s day.
Something of an all-round sportsman, Mr Farmer had captained both his school rugby team, for which he played at scrum half, and the school golf team. He went on to become a member of the Lothian Burn Golf Club, in Edinburgh, and joined Carlisle Golf Club soon after arriving to work in the city.
He played for the Cumberland county team and was, to an extent, following in his father’s footsteps as a very keen golfer.
Away from the greens, he was an elder at the Presbyterian church in Fisher Street, Carlisle, and he and his wife became members of the Church of Scotland in Chapel Street.
Aged 84 when he died, Mr Farmer leaves his wife, son, two daughters and four grandchildren.
He was cremated in Carlisle with George Hudson and Sons making the arrangements.
