Guild member and enthusiastic supporter Laurie Taylor died mid-February.
He was a Trustee of the Guild Charitable Trust from 2001 to 2006 and during a career working for organisations involved in the agricultural industry he was General Secretary of the National Association of Agricultural Contractors (NAAC).
Laurie was born in Nottingham in 1926, the son of an organ builder. His family moved to London and he attended Abingdon School near Oxford, where he won a scholarship to read classics at Oxford University. Before he could complete his degree he was called up to serve in the Army during the Second World War.
Rather than return to Oxford after the war, he decided to pursue an interest in agriculture, moving to Kent with his wife Val to work as a farm manager. Later, he joined the sales team at agrochemicals firm May & Baker in Essex.
Redundancy ended his career with the company but almost immediately he was appointed secretary of the National Association of Agricultural Contractors (NAAC) when it was based at Hindhead in Surrey.
Current NAAC chief executive, Guild member Jill Hewitt, who moved the organisation to its new home on the former Farmers Weekly farm, Easton Lodge, near Peterborough, recalls that Laurie continued to work with the organisation in semi-retirement as public relations officer, until 2001 when he retired to enjoy other interests and time with his family.
