AFTER Peter Biggs stood down from his village's parish council in May after 32 years, few would deny that he has earned the title “Mr Kennington”.

In his 50 years in the village, he has also served the cricket club, the village hall committee, the amateur dramatic society and countless other societies.

At their annual show on September 5, members of Kennington Horticultural Society presented him with an award for long service to the village.

So it might surprise many to learn that he had a less-than-auspicious start to his civic service.

Born in Lime Walk, Headington, and raised in East Oxford, Mr Biggs moved to Kennington shortly after he married wife Margaret, who was born in the village.

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One night in the late 1960s he was drinking in the Tandem pub when the then-captain of the cricket club came round trying to rally players for a game the next day.

Mr Biggs, now a grandfather of five who lives in Grundy Crescent, said: “I didn’t want to play, so as an excuse I said I haven’t got any boots. I didn’t even see Roy Norris [a former player in the village] leave, but he went home and got some boots came back and threw them down and said ‘now you’ve got some boots’. My public life career started with this guy Roy.”

Mr Biggs played the next day and took seven wickets for nine runs and went on to serve the club as player and secretary for years.

And it was for that reason that he got involved with the village hall committee.

The 70-year-old explained: “We tried to book the hall for a disco, but the person we had to go through was a right pain in the [neck], so I joined the committee.”

When no-one volunteered to be chairman, he stepped up to the plate. He was part of the parish council for 32 years, and served 21 of those as chairman.

In between his engineering career at Osberton Radiators in Woodstock Road, Cowley Works and RM at Milton Park, he also produced the Kennington pantomime for 15 years, became a member of the horticultural society, looked after the village war memorial gardens and played Father Christmas at countless village parties.

He said: “I always did it because somebody needed to do it."

With so much village service under his belt, Mr Biggs said people down the pub would often point out "but you weren’t born in the village, were you?".

But he recently discovered that his great, great, great, great, great grandfather was born in Cow Lane in the 18th century.

He said: “I’m a bit like a stick of rock – cut me in half I would say Kennington down the middle.”

After stepping down from the parish council, the village hall committee is his one remaining commitment. He said with that, and going to every single home and away game of his beloved Arsenal, he would not be at a loose end any time soon.