In December 2012 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) and the following June he was appointed MBE by HM The Queen in the Birthday Honours list, for services to the community in Suffolk.

[5] He created the first public examination in pop music,[6] a mode III Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE)[7] which was first administered in 1976.

In 1981 Farmer became Deputy Head of Dick Sheppard School, a mixed comprehensive in Brixton noted for its left-wing activists on the teaching staff.

After the ILEA was abolished Farmer left London for Suffolk and held a number of part-time posts, teaching and examining music, including Choirmaster at Old Buckenham Hall prep school.

[19] He has served on St Edmundsbury's cabinet, first as Arts & Culture portfolio holder,[20] where he immediately got embroiled in the "dangerous" headstone controversy[21] and closing the Manor House Museum.

[28] In February 2015 Farmer announced that he would not be seeking re-election in May 2015 due to ill health, at the time saying he had decided to ‘give way to someone younger and fitter’.