Dick Joice (1921 in Great Ryburgh, Norfolk – 1999) was a British regional television presenter renowned in the East of England for his Anglia Television programmes - particularly the Bygones series that ran from 1967 for twenty years. [1] He was a director of Anglia TV in the company's infancy and its head of local programmes.
A farmer's son, Joice was educated at Culford School before taking over his father's tenancy on the Norfolk estate of the Marquess Townshend in 1940. It was a chance conversation with his landlord in 1958 that launched his career into television. Townshend, chairman of the new Anglia company, recognised that programmes for the farming community would be a vital part of the service and asked Dick to help.
From 1959 Dick Joice presented Anglia's weekly Farming Diary as well as becoming the first host of the regional news magazine programme About Anglia in 1960. It was, however, his programme Bygones that had a tremendous impact in the region (despite being little known outside) and established him as a much-loved presenter. [2]
Each half-hourly edition of Bygones explored East Anglian history and traditional crafts and featured mystery objects, about which Joice asked viewers, "Does anyone know what this was used for?" In two particularly memorable programmes (Horsemen and The Harvest directed by Geoffrey Weaver), Weaver assembled teams of men - some in their eighties - to demonstrate their now-lost skills with horses and in the fields.
In his autobiography, Full Circle, Joice wrote that he ‘...was born with a naturally acquisitive and inquisitive nature, always wanting to find out how things worked and where they came from;’ and his own collection of bygone agricultural and domestic items was enormous. In 1979 this lifetime collection came to rest in the old stable block at Holkham Hall after Lord Leicester acquired it to complement his exhibition celebrating the contribution of the Coke family to the Agricultural Revolution of the late 18th and 19th centuries. [3]
Bygones was an Anglia local programme that made it to the ITV network, and, after Joice's death, it won the Royal Television Society Television Professionals' All-time Favourite Regional Series Award in 2000. [4] The award was collected by Joice's wife Jean. He was featured in a BBC Radio 4 series, Norfolk Man broadcast in 1988. [5]
Joice bought the watermill at Newton by Castle Acre in 1967 and rebuilt the millhouse. [6]
Norfolk is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and east, Cambridgeshire to the west, and Suffolk to the south. The largest settlement is the city of Norwich.
Holkham National Nature Reserve is England's largest national nature reserve (NNR). It is on the Norfolk coast between Burnham Overy Staithe and Blakeney, and is managed by Natural England with the cooperation of the Holkham Estate. Its 3,900 hectares comprise a wide range of habitats, including grazing marsh, woodland, salt marsh, sand dunes and foreshore. The reserve is part of the North Norfolk Coast Site of Special Scientific Interest, and the larger area is additionally protected through Natura 2000, Special Protection Area (SPA) and Ramsar listings, and is part of both an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and a World Biosphere Reserve. Holkham NNR is important for its wintering wildfowl, especially pink-footed geese, Eurasian wigeon and brant geese, but it also has breeding waders, and attracts many migrating birds in autumn. Many scarce invertebrates and plants can be found in the dunes, and the reserve is one of the only two sites in the UK to have an antlion colony.
John Opie was an English historical and portrait painter. He painted many great men and women of his day, including members of the British Royal Family, and others who were notable in the artistic and literary professions.
BBC Radio Norfolk is the BBC's local radio station serving the county of Norfolk.
ITV Anglia, previously known as Anglia Television, is the ITV franchise holder for the East of England. The station is based at Anglia House in Norwich, with regional news bureaux in Cambridge and Northampton. ITV Anglia is owned and operated by ITV plc under the licence name of ITV Broadcasting Limited.
BBC Look East is a BBC regional television news service for the East of England, produced by BBC East.
Thomas William Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester, known as Coke of Norfolk or Coke of Holkham, was a British politician and agricultural reformer. Born to Wenman Coke, Member of Parliament (MP) for Derby, and his wife Elizabeth, Coke was educated at several schools, including Eton College, before undertaking a Grand Tour of Europe. He returned to Britain and married. When his father died he inherited a 30,000-acre Norfolk estate. Returned to Parliament in 1776 for Norfolk, Coke became a close friend of Charles James Fox, and joined his Eton schoolmate William Windham in his support of the American colonists during the American Revolutionary War. As a supporter of Fox, Coke was one of the MPs who lost their seats in the 1784 general election, and he returned to Norfolk to work on farming, hunting, and the maintenance and expansion of Holkham Hall, his ancestral home.
Weavers Green is a British television soap opera, made in 1966 for ITV by Anglia Television. It was created based on an idea by Dick Joice. It was the first rural soap opera.
Jacob John Humphrey DL is an English television presenter, best known for formerly hosting Champions League football on BT Sport, CBBC's Bamzooki, and BBC Sport's coverage of Formula 1 Grand Prix. He hosts the High Performance Podcast.
Paul Heiney is a British radio broadcaster and television reporter, most notable as a former presenter of That's Life!.
About Anglia is a regional news magazine programme produced by Anglia Television in the east of England, broadcast for over thirty years from 2 June 1960 to 6 July 1990.
Karin Thandi Giannone is a South African-born British news presenter working in the United Kingdom. She is a London-based main presenter on the BBC News channel.
Stephen Lee is a British-Australian journalist and television presenter, best known as a newsreader for ITV News and GMTV in the United Kingdom.
Arthur Redvers Randell wrote about life in the English Fens.
Bygones is an Anglia Television documentary series exploring East Anglian history and traditional rural crafts. Bygones won the Royal Television Society Television Professionals' All-time Favourite Regional Series Award in 2000.
Stewart White is a British journalist and broadcaster, best known for presenting the East Anglian regional BBC News programme Look East for 37 years.
Newton by Castle Acre is a village, Anglican parish and civil parish in the Breckland district of the English county of Norfolk. It is situated on the A1065 Mildenhall to Fakenham road, about 4 miles (6.4 km) north of the town of Swaffham. The village is 28 miles (45 km) from the city of Norwich and 103 miles (166 km) from London.
The North Norfolk Coast Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) is an area of European importance for wildlife in Norfolk, England. It comprises 7,700 ha (19,027 acres) of the county's north coast from just west of Holme-next-the-Sea to Kelling, and is additionally protected through Natura 2000, Special Protection Area (SPA) listings; it is also part of the Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). The North Norfolk Coast is also designated as a wetland of international importance on the Ramsar list and most of it is a Biosphere Reserve.
ITV News Calendar is a British television news service broadcast and produced by ITV Yorkshire.
Mustard TV was a local television station based in Norwich, Norfolk. It broadcast to over 400,000 people, covering Norwich and much of Norfolk reaching Cromer in the north of the county, Dereham to the west and parts of south Norfolk and north Suffolk. It was a wholly owned subsidiary of regional media group Archant and was one of 19 initial local TV stations awarded licences by UK broadcasting regulator Ofcom.