Percy Vernon

An Oxfordshire dairyman, who rose through the ranks to become a director of the company he served for more than 30 years, has died.

Percy Vernon, of Yarnton Road, Kidlington, who was 86, was honoured by family, friends and former colleagues at his funeral at Wolvercote cemetery last Thursday.

Born in Cullompton, Devon, Mr Vernon started his working life as a lorry driver collecting milk from isolated farms, before moving to Oxford and joining the Burton Dairy in Stephen Road, Headington, in 1936. After war service as a sergeant PT instructor in the RAF, he rejoined Burton's and became depot manager when the new dairy was built in 1953.

He transferred to the County Dairies Group when it started up in Langford Lane, Kidlington, in the 1950s, and went on to become its public relations officer, chief buyer, and executive director before retiring in 1981.

Sadly this coincided with the onset of his wife Dorothy's decline through Alzheimer's disease, and he nursed her for seven years until her death in 1988.

Their only son, Andrew, who is employed as a Motobility specialist with the Hartwell-Vauxhall group in Oxford, said his father was "a great guy."

He added: "He was very much a 'hands-on' man and if the machines went wrong the engineers used to ask him for help.

"He spent the whole of his working life in the job and never even had Christmas off. He used to tell people: 'Cows don't stop giving milk.'"