Newsletter No. 17 August 2025

Alan and Catherine Randall - Spring 2025’s Hidden Treasures

I arrived at Hyde Farm on a sunny spring morning to interview Alan and Catherine, our Bisham Church Friends’ latest Hidden Treasures.  In lieu of a full newsletter, this is a Special Edition, to celebrate their long lives together and to hear about their love of Bisham and the church.

Farming has been in Alan’s family for generations, and the history of Hyde farm has been written about previously. It’s now an arable farm, ever since the foot and mouth scare in 2001, when they sold their entire dairy herd of 200 cows to a farmer in Cumbria, who needed to replace his livestock. The farm spans around 850 acres, in a wonderful setting, is beautifully kept and regeneratively farmed. I’d never visited them before, but in truth, arriving there feels like coming home.

Inside their farmhouse they have wonderful, light-filled rooms, with evidence of a full life and extended family everywhere. Catherine, Alan and I sat down for over an hour to talk about their lives, and it was a joy from beginning to end.

Starting with Catherine, she was born in Kirkharle, the home of Capability Brown, and enjoyed her bucolic life growing up in Northumberland, the eldest of six in a farming family.  Catherine was immersed in farming there, but she decided as a young adult to come to the South. Her friend was coming to this area as she had a love interest and Catherine decided to come with her to teach.

She joined Reading Young Farmers to meet local people ‘and farming was what I knew’, and there was Alan. The rest is history. He was obviously a hit with her, and when she was 25 years old, they were married.

Alan attended the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester and then returned to Hyde Farm to join his father in the farm business.   He enjoyed being part of other farming societies and was County Chairman of the Berkshire Federation of Young Farmers, later he became Chairman of our local Royal East Berks Agricultural Association, also their President a few years later.  He was involved with the Berkshire Grassland Society and a founder member of the Maize Growers Association, a national farmers’ group.  Chesham Farmers was a trading group of local Chiltern farmers which Alan chaired in the 1990’s and negotiated their amalgamation with Oxford Farming Group to form Orion to gain better trading deals with agricultural merchants and utility companies.

Alan’s interests beyond farming have always been around sport but particularly rugby and cricket.  He played rugby at school and at Cirencester and for Thames Valley RFC, which later became Maidenhead RFC.  (In the 1960’s they played in Kidwells Park, which is now an amenity park for the town, next to the Commonwealth Graves Commission).

Cricket is also a passion, and he is an MCC Member (you’ll see the Club bow tie in the photograph of Alan at Henley). Going to Lords Test matches is a real highlight of his summer.   His 80^th Birthday was held there with 60 guests in the Writing Room, with drinks beforehand in the Bowlers’ Bar. Alan enjoyed playing with the 1^st XI at school and college.

Catherine has always really enjoyed being part of farm life while having her own purpose and forging her own interests ever since. Alan has always had a relatively large staff on the farm, so Catherine was able to be at home for her children, Rosanna and Andrew, and to pursue many of her own interests.

She joined the Maidenhead branch of The Wives Fellowship soon after she was married. It’s a Christian Fellowship group that she is still heavily involved with, she’s currently Secretary.  She is also Chair of the NSPCC locally and helps fundraise for them and recently became President of Dean Rise WI. All this on top of being a mother, bringing up her children and looking after Alan (his words)

They now have grandchildren too. George (14) and Isla (12) live on the farm with Alan and Catherine’s son, Andrew and his wife Jenny, while Rosanna and family live near Edinburgh with their two young children.

Andrew and George are both already part of the Randall farming dynasty. Andrew runs the farm now and grandson George is very keen to be part of the farm’s future. (When I interviewed Catherine and Alan he was up in Jedburgh with Catherine’s nephew, learning about sheep and highland cattle farming from them in his school holidays). He already drives the tractor, which, as Catherine reminded me, is a big rite of passage into becoming a fully-fledged farmer.  Catherine and Alan really treasure their extended family and keep in touch with everyone as much as possible

Alan talked about the luck they had had (or is it good judgement?) in having opportunities to acquire land, maximise their assets and to rent their outbuildings. They have also moved to regenerative or ‘no plough’ farming which they both consider a great success.

A great excitement 7 years ago was the discovery of The ‘Marlow Warlord’ - a 6th-century AD Anglo-Saxon warrior on their land. The burial, found by metal detectorists Sue Washington in 2018, was located on a hilltop on Hyde Farm, overlooking the Thames Valley. The site, undisturbed for over 1,400 years, contained the remains of the warlord, a sword in a decorated scabbard, spears, bronze and glass vessels, and other items. The burial is believed to represent a high-status warrior, possibly a leader of a local tribe. 

Alan and Catherine’s relationship with Bisham Church is a very long and happy one. Alan’s predecessors are buried in the churchyard, (see photos). Alan was Christened there, also their two children.  Among other things, Catherine organises readers for the Sunday service lessons, the coffee rota, the flower arranging rota and enjoys being part of the flower arranging team.

When she first arrived at Bisham church, she was struck by the location…

“It’s such a wonderful setting, right next to the river, and it’s a lovely building. Also, I’m a great architecture and history fan…and I realised it was quite special, a typical medieval church but with its Victorian refurbishments.”  

She praised Sheila for bringing the history to life for so many local people. She and Alan have a very strong commitment to the whole community, both in the village and the church. Alan in the past enjoyed welcoming school groups of young children to the farm, they aways enjoyed seeing the large machinery, the tractors and combine harvester.

“It’s a lovely community, really lovely”.

Then more generous words, this time for Sean and the BCF team;

“Sean’s amazing…we owe him so much. It’s thriving under his leadership, and he’s brought people in and united us more.”

I asked them both to tell me what their favourite part of the church was. For Catherine it was the Hoby stained-glass window.

“It dates back to 1609. When it was refurbished Richard (Brooman) organised a minibus and some of us went down to Canterbury Cathedral to the glass workshop to see it being done, which was very exciting”. 

Pat Burstall, who would have been a star Bisham Hidden Treasure but always refused to be interviewed, piloted the project, finding grants to fund it all.   “I love the photograph of the window on the BCF website that Robert Frost took. When you open the website and see ... the light coming through the window, that’s something special.”

Alan’s church treasures are the family graves. Towards the river on the right as you look at the church are his great grandparents, Henry and Catherine Randall, who sit next to their 5^th child, a son, who sadly died aged 23.

“They are where we all come from, and it was a farm next door to ours where they started and there were seven children in total.”

Henry died around the turn of the 20^th Century, and his wife Catherine about 20 years later.  Alan’s parents, Robert and Edith, are also buried there, alongside an illicitly planted cherry blossom tree, placed there by Alan’s sister.  It’s rather beautiful.

Alan’s great-great grandmother, (Catherine’s mother) ran the Bull. She and her husband are also buried in the graveyard, by the path. They owned a phaeton* that Alan’s great grandmother arrived to church in every Sunday.

(Out of interest I researched phaetons after the interview and found out that they were pretty racy. A phaeton is described as a form of sporty open carriage popular in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, typically featuring a minimal, very lightly sprung body, atop four extravagantly large wheels. With open seating, it is both fast and dangerous, giving rise to its name which is taken from the mythical Phaethon, son of Helios, who nearly set the Earth on fire while attempting to drive the chariot of the Sun. Risky stuff…)

         *

I asked Alan and Catherine to tell me what made each of them special to the other.  Alan first, on Catherine:

“Being a loving wife above all… working in so many different directions.  She loved being a mum.”  Catherine added that she loves cooking and entertaining and as the Bisham Church Friends can attest, her cakes are wonderful.

As for any irritating habits, according to Alan there were none. Catherine chipped in again here…

“I’m very impatient. I like everything done yesterday. Life, you know, it flies past so you might as well get on with things, don’t you think?”

Catherine on Alan:

“He’s the most generous, kind, thoughtful person.  He’s a real gentleman. He’s got a good sense of humour, and he loves engaging with people.  My mother always said, ‘I can put Alan next to anybody tricky at dinner, because I know he’ll manage them very well.’ He’d always make the effort to get a bit of a smile out of them. It’s a real gift.”

Alan ended by saying that together they’d had such a wonderful life. What a privilege it was to interview them both, and to hear about such an interesting, engaged and joyful marriage, where everybody around them benefits from being part of their great partnership.       

Sadly, Alan died in mid-May having lived stoically with heart failure for 3 years.  It was a gradual slowing down during the past year which restricted his life, but he remained ever positive, full of humour and uncomplaining to the end. His life was mourned and celebrated with a Thanksgiving service at All Saints’ Church, Bisham where over 300 family and friends paid tribute to a well-loved respected farmer and gentle man.

The trophies were awarded to Andrew (son) at our local Royal East Berks Agricultural Association for farm competitions they he had won, judged in June 2023.

We have a ploughing match at the end of September, when there are locals ploughing, occasionally there are horses ploughing.  George (grandson) entered his first competition last September and won 1^st prize!  All the cups are presented then plus the ploughmen’s cups.

• The large cup is George VI Challenge Cup for the Best Farmed Farm in the area, the Supreme Champion, held by Alan and Andrew.

• Jenny (daughter in law) is holding the Lord Astor Challenge Cup for the Best Small Farm

• I’m holding the S W Philp Challenge Cup for the Best crop of Winter Wheat

• George has the Knight, Frank and Rutley Challenge Cup for the Best crop of Spring Oats

• Isla (granddaughter) has the  E T Briggs Challenge Cup for the best crop of Winter Oil Seed Rape

• Andrew had been awarded the Supreme Champion George VI cup for the first time in 2018.  Alan said that he had been waiting for 50 years to win that cup!  A special occasion for him and us.