When I meet Kiera Bentley, the new(ish) Mayor of Faringdon, she isn’t wearing her golden chain but I’m impressed nonetheless by her energy and the brilliance of her smile.
Kiera has been Mayor for about a year and, since Covid restrictions were lifted in the spring, she has been excitedly thinking about new local events that everyone in town can get involved in, however young or old, however long they have been here or plan to stay. “These are community events where you come and join in, the more the merrier: by getting involved each person or family injects its own fun into the day’s theme or activity and then these things take on a life of their own,” she explains.
“Faringdon’s such an amazing active town and very community-minded,” she smiles. We moved here when my husband came to work locally, and I fell for it immediately. There’s the Folly and Follyfest, the music scene, great old pubs and so much more. it has a very diverse range of people living here which is great. I love that it has a ‘town’ feel rather than being a quiet village and that although it isn’t very big that you can get absolutely everything in the vicinity. It has so much more to it than that archetypal sleepy middle-class Cotswold village. For me, that, along with some proper history, really makes it a real place worth celebrating and I love that it’s very quirky, a touch edgy even.”
It isn’t a surprise that Keira would shy away from the pristine perfection of a hamlet lifted from a Miss Marple film set: in a previous chapter of life, Keira was a private investigator with the Oxford Detective Bureau and appreciates humanity in its many guises. “I got into that because I’m really nosey,” she grins, “and it involved lots of surveillance. I saw too much sleaze to do it forever though: it put lots of elements of life into perspective and so that’s when I decided to turn my focus back to animals! Whatever else I have been doing, dogs and horses were always important to me.”
Keira was originally a Staffordshire lass who, as a youngster, headed down south to work in hotels and pubs, rising in the ranks to run an independent chain in the hospitality trade for some years. “I had a lot of fun,” she smiles. “We worked hard and played hard, but when a very close friend of mine died of liver disease, it was a bit of a wake-up call. I realised it wasn’t the way I wanted to live forever.
“It was time for a change of direction and so I trained as a riding instructor initially but I actually I ended up working for Guide Dogs for the Blind. You have to undergo a thorough and lengthy training programme to become a ‘Guide Dog Mobility Instructor’: although it takes less than a year to train one of the dogs, it takes three years to train a person!” She laughs, “and then for ten years I worked with both the dogs and the people who were going to be using them. Guide Dogs for the Blind is such an amazing charity: it was great being part of that, of a big team doing genuinely life-changing things, and I have been involved as governor and chair of a couple of other charities ever since. Alongside working with the dogs and their handlers, I studied some employment law and started to represent people at tribunals and became involved in various consultations which was my first venture which touched on politics. Faringdon Town Council, though, although we report to the Vale of White Horse District Council, isn’t a political entity itself. People often don’t realise that the councillors are simply a set of elected volunteers who really care about the town and want to make things as good as possible for all the people who live here. To do that the best we can, we’d love to see a greater diversity of types of people involved suggesting fresh ideas to team up with the town’s long-standing ‘safe pairs of hands’ approach, so that the demographic of the council matches the changing shape of the town.”
Kiera used to live in Faringdon centre but has recently moved to a small-holding along the road to Wantage. “My husband calls it ‘A Shed on the Swamp’,” she laughs. “We wanted to minimise our environmental impact and live more sustainably. Now we have lots of chickens and ducks, pigs and turkeys, oh, and dogs of course. Two Irish terriers and a wire fox terrier. I love terriers,” she continues, “because they’re such strong characters and they have a great sense of humour. They’re fiercely loyal and tenacious: they won’t start a fight, but they will finish one,” she grins.
And what is Keira looking forward to seeing in town over the next few months? “We’re planning for the Jubilee with a family day in Tuckers Park with a May Pole too and a Mayor’s end-of-summer celebration with a beach theme, after the success of last year’s inland seaside! Get that bucket and spade at the ready!”
And with that Keira invites everyone to pitch in and get involved. “If you would like to make suggestions the Town Council would love to hear from you,” she grins.
