A TRUE character of the Farnham community, Eric Anthony Moore, has died aged 84.

Eric was a firm fixture of Farnham life for some 77 years, first as the son of a publican and then a shop assistant and general labourer in the town centre.

However, he gained notoriety in his later days as an unmistakable grey-haired old man patrolling his beloved town centre on a daily basis, chatting to passers-by and frequently holding up traffic as he crossed the road – waving his crutch menacingly at any driver who dared beep at him.

Eric was born on March 26, 1932, in Epsom, the second son of Alice and Fred Moore.

Two years later, Eric’s parents moved to London to find work during the Great Depression and it was during his time in the capital that young Eric developed a bad ear infection that left him deaf in one ear for the rest of his life.

One week before Christmas 1939, the threat of the Blitz prompted the family to move out of London to Farnham where they took over The Lamb pub, on Abbey Street, where they remained for some 17 years.

Eric went to school on West Street but, suffering from what in modern times would be recognised as a learning difficulty, he struggled in mainstream education and was frequently bullied by his classmates.

Another disappointment arrived in 1950 when, having watched his father and brother conscripted into service, his own dreams of a military career were shattered when he failed the Army medical owing to his partial deafness.

Instead, Eric took a job as a general labourer with Kingham and Sons wholesalers on West Street with whom he helped distribute and sell groceries until he was made redundant in 1982.

For a time he also lived and worked at a camp in Hindhead run by London County Council for children in the capital to get out into the countryside, and after leaving Kingham’s he went on to work at Dzus Fasteners in Farnham until he was again made redundant and took a disability pension.

Throughout this time, Eric lived at his family home on St George’s Road with his mother, on whom he relied on greatly until her death in 1979, 11 years after his father died.

He loved listening to music, especially Johnny Mathis and Barbara Streisand, and was a good dancer.

Eric was also very well travelled, taking many cruises around Europe on his own at a time when this was far from the norm.

However, it was following his redundancy from Dzus that his life as a firm fixture of Farnham truly began, travelling into the town centre seven days a week come rain or shine.

This aspect of his life always remained something of a mystery to his family, but Eric was well known to the town’s shopkeepers, and especially Elphicks department store which treated him to a free lunch for many years.

He became something of a cult figure, especially among the student population, and was the subject of several myths, including that he was hurt in the war or was an eccentric millionaire – all of which were, of course, untrue.

Eric had a number of setbacks in his later years. The first when he was knocked down by a car while crossing the Farnham bypass at Hickley’s Corner, requiring a stay in Frimley Park Hospital and the use of a crutch he would later become known for.

More recently, he fell outside his home on St George’s Road and broke his hip, after which he moved into Cobgates care home on Falkner Road and later Ashton Manor nursing home on Beales Lane where he died on August 26 after a short illness, aged 84.

His older brother Pete told the Herald: “Eric didn’t have a lot of interests really, he just liked people. In a way his life was so monotonous, but I think all of his trips into Farnham was his make-believe life.

“It didn’t matter what the weather was like and we often wondered what he did. I was really amazed by the amount of people who got to know him later on in life and I’m sure there are lots of people we don’t know who know him quite well.

“He never got married and didn’t have a family of his own, but we always included him at Christmas and whenever we had family get togethers. Eric was always with us.”

Eric’s niece Brenda added: “We found it quite hard that people used to call him ‘Mad Eric’, because obviously we knew that he wasn’t mad, he just had learning difficulties.

“You wouldn’t do that today would you, calling children who have problems ‘mad’. They would receive extra help at school, but it wasn’t like that in Eric’s day.

“We didn’t want people to take the mickey out of him because he wasn’t just a bit of an odd ball, he was our family.”

Everyone is welcome to attend Eric’s funeral service on Thursday, September 22, in St Andrew’s Church, Farnham, at noon, which will be followed by an invite-only cremation in Aldershot.

His ashes will be interned in his mother and father’s grave in the West Street Cemetery. Donations can be made to Marie Curie in Eric’s memory through Ford Mears funeral directors in Aldershot.