Paul S Farmer

Paul S. Farmer is a music teacher and city councillor.
Education
Farmer studied organ at the The Royal College of Music. Whilst at the College he was organist at St Simon Zelotes Church, Cadogan Square. He was also accompanist to The Wimbledon Girl Singers during this time, performing at The Queen Elizabeth Hall and on BBC Radio 2's Sunday Half Hour. On leaving the RCM he went into secondary school music teaching. He later studied part-time at London University’s Institute of Education, where he took both the Academic Diploma and MA in Education.
Employment
Farmer was successively Head of Music at Ashmole School, Barnet and Holland Park School, London, where he developed the use of pop music in music teaching and first met Caroline Benn, with whom he later collaborated. Farmer became secretary of RiCE, Benn's campaigning group for comprehensive education, in Jan 1981. Among his choir at Holland Park (which sang on London's South Bank) was the future actress Melanie Jessop. By contrast one of his pop music CSE students became the reggae star .
In 1977 he became Head of Communications Faculty at The Stoke High School, Ipswich. In 1981 he became Deputy Head of Dick Sheppard School, a mixed comprehensive in Brixton, and subsequently its Head Teacher, aged only 33.
His time as head coincided with widespread industrial action and he presided over a turbulent period in the school's history. This included an unofficial walk-out by the staff, which produced the headline in The Daily Telegraph: Children 'ran wild in NUT walk-out' and featured in a House of Lords debate on 5th Feb 1986 by Lord Ritchie of Dundee (Hansard cc 1175). There were also happier times such as the visit by The Prince and Princess of Wales in January 1982 which can be seen on You Tube. By 1987 The Observer described the school as a 'ray(s) of hope...now making strenuous efforts to improve itself, not without success.'
Farmer later became head of a larger comprehensive school in south London, and his substantive successor at Dick Sheppard was Philip Lawrence QGM, later murdered outside the school of his second headship.
After the Inner London Education Authority was abolished Farmer left London for Suffolk and held a number of part-time posts, including choirmaster at Old Buckenham Hall School, Brettenham and music examiner for Trinity College, London. He later trained in mediation and for a time was co-ordinator of the St Edmundsbury Area Mediation Service (SEAMS). In 1997 he was made a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute.
Council experience
In 1992 Farmer won a Suffolk County Council by-election and became a county councillor for Bury St Edmunds. On May 1, 2003 he was elected as an Abbeygate ward councillor for both the St Edmundsbury Borough and (newly formed) Bury St Edmunds Town Councils.
Farmer left the Town Council in July 2005 because of concerns that it was taking on too much responsibility.
In March 2006 he was appointed to St Edmundsbury Council’s cabinet as Portfolio Holder for Arts & Culture, and after being re-elected in 2007 became Portfolio Holder for Resources & Efficiency, with responsibility for leading the Council's budget setting process. On 13 March 2008, having been asked by the Conservatives to stand in a by-election, he was elected to represent Abbeygate ward again on the Town Council, and on 4 June 2009 he was elected to Suffolk County Council representing the Tower division, which is approximately half of the town.
In September 2010 Farmer reduced his workload, citing health reasons. He resigned from his cabinet and committee chairman posts and also left the county council. He remains a back-bench councillor, representing 3,800 residents in Abbeygate ward, an area with frequent and often controversial planning or licensing applications. In April 2011 he successfully proposed that the planning permission for J.D.Wetherspoon plc to convert the town's Grade 2 Listed Corn Exchange would be restricted to closing times of 11pm Sunday-Thursday and Midnight Fridays & Saturdays. At the May 2011 local elections his vote and majority were increased by 23% and 86% respectively.
Main published works
*Music in Practice (editor) Oxford University Press 1984
*A Handbook of Composers and their music Oxford University Press 1982
*Music in the Comprehensive School Oxford University Press 1979 & 1984
*Pop Workbook (with A.Attwood) Edward Arnold 1978
*Longman Music Topics A series of ten classroom booklets, Longman 1979-1986

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