If you speak to anybody who remembers growing up on the Mile Cross Estate from the very early days and right through until the 1960’s it won’t take them too long before they mention a seemingly infamous character going by the name of “Fungi”, his farm or his pit. “Old Fungi”, “Farmer Fungi” or even “Cowboy Fungi” was actually a chap named Arthur Prentice and he had moved out of the city centre to and into number 64 Appleyard Crescent to be closer to the countryside, which back then was just across the road.

Arthur was a Market Gardener who before relocating to Mile Cross had lived at Rupert Street and Waddington Street and in 1911 at the age of 33 married Minnie Abbs at the Holy Trinity Church on Essex Street. Arthur’s father was a Bankers Agent named Frederick Prentice and his wife, Minnie came from a Gardening family; her father Jacob Abbs profession being a Gardener, which is probably how Arthur and Minnie had met.