Letters
REMINDED OF RAYNHAM
Dear Editor
i was thrilled to see the colour photos of Raynham Day in Old Glory recently, a wonderful early event which I assumed had long been forgotten in the mists of time!
As a schoolboy I was fortunate to visit both events held over an entire weekend in the sunny September weather of 1962 and 1963, I still have the programmes and a few black and white photos of not very good quality.
The shows were organised by a small group of local enthusiasts led by the late Dick Joice, farmer and popular Anglia TV broadcaster who presented the long-running Bygones TV series. He managed to secure the use of the elegant estate surrounding Raynham Hall in north-west Norfolk by permission of the landowner and fellow farmer Lord Townshend. Both men had been instrumental in launching Anglia TV back in 1959. It was realised there had never been an old-time rally in the north Norfolk area where there was much old machinery which had never been displayed. Indeed Dick Joice had his own large collection of bygones, including the sole surviving Norfolk-built Great Ryburgh Farmers Foundry portable steam engine.
This was a time of surging interest in steam rallies and the preservation movement and coincided with the release of that wonderful light comedy film about the adventures of a
