A DEDICATED farmer who turned a small piggery into one of the biggest farms of its kind in the Slough area has died at the age of 85.

Lewis Anderson was living in retirement at Sunrise Farm at Bangors Road North, Iver Heath at the time of his death.

He was born in West London where his father owned a greengrocer's shop, as well as a horse and cart hire business used by local tradespeople.

His daughter Pauline said: "Dad always wanted to be a pig farmer."

He moved to Iver and acquired a small piggery at Sunrise Farm with 20 to 30 animals, which he built up with his wife Maureen and their daughters Pauline and Audrey until it housed 1,100 pigs.

Pauline Anderson said her parents had a wonderful partnership.

She said: "They had known each other since they were eight. My uncle brought my dad home with him because they were playmates and that was when he met my mother and at some point in the years that followed love blossomed."

Pauline and her sister Audrey worked alongside their mum and dad as the farm expanded. Pauline remembers her dad getting up at 7.30 am every day to drive to London to pick up unused food from restaurants and hotels to bring back to transform into pigswill.

Mr Anderson went on to acquire Bangors Park Farm in Bangors Road South - only half a mile from Sunrise.

There the family raised Aberdeen Angus and later Jersey and Guernsey cows on 70 acres of land.

Pauline Anderson said: "He was not a man to go down the pub. He was very much a family man. He loved to go to agricultural shows, and he loved carriage riding."

He kept a small stud at Bangors Farm and his daughter Pauline inherited his love of horses and now breeds shire horses with her partner Robert Brickell.

Together they are determined to give her dad a real send off. A cortege led by one of their horses in a decorated harness will set off from Sunrise at 1.30pm on Tuesday, October 30 travelling to Bangors Park.

The funeral is at Breakspear Crematorium, Breakspear Road, Ruislip at 3pm.