A WELL-KNOWN Oxford farmer died just days after his beloved dog.

Eighty-nine-year-old Charles Gee was a familiar sight riding around Binsey and the canal towpath on his old Post Office bicycle with Millie by his side.

Mr Gee, of Medley Manor Farm in Binsey, died at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital on Monday, April 2, after a short illness. Millie, his 13-year-old Border Collie, pictured, had died three weeks before.

Mr Gee was an active warden at St Margaret’s Church, Binsey, and also a Mason at the Alfred Lodge in Banbury Road.

He was born in Victoria Road, North Oxford, on October 15, 1922, the son of Charles and Georgina Gee.

He had a brother Richard, and sisters Biddy and Mary.

His aunts founded the Gee’s greengrocers and florist’s shop in Banbury Road which was turned into a restaurant in 1984.

Mr Gee grew up in Standlake and left school at 14. Because of his asthma, he was an engineer during the Second World War and worked on Spitfires.

After the war he and his brother ran the Gee Brothers agricultural engineering, garage and haulage business in Stoke Lyne, before buying Medley Manor Farm in 1958.

It has been run as a cattle farm since then and Mr Gee launched the Pick Your Own business in the late 1970s.

The farm is famed locally for its asparagus and sells Aberdeen Angus beef to Waitrose.

Mr Gee married Barbara Golder at St Aldate’s Church in 1960.

She passed away in 1996.

Mr Gee’s funeral will take place next Wednesday at 11am at St Margaret’s Church, Binsey. Mr Gee leaves behind two sons – Charlie, 48, who runs the farm, and Nick, 45, who runs Avenge Pest Control from Binsey – and four grandchildren, Chloe, 17, Charles, 15, Adam, nine, Harry, six and Rosie, four.