An old friend who likes to keep tabs on popular  culture tells me he’s had enough of Love Island because it hardly ever mentions Scroby -  while his idea for a new countrysid  sit-com called To The Manure Born has been slapped down by BBC bosses scared of upsetting anyone called Audrey fforbes-Hamilton.

I share my chum’s unease over such short-sighted policies at a time when national and regional television dumbing-down antics are veering towards the subterranean and even the good old wireless is getting confused over where worthwhile information and wholesome entertainment begin and end.

The “local” label has shed all validity across so much of our media while shrill invitations at the end of national TV bulletins to stay tuned for “the news where you are” might just as well feature Mr Blobby making strange noises in a caravan studio parked somewhere near Milton Keynes.

I had hoped the recent swift demise of Radio Norfolk might prompt a bit more than a succession of lamentations over Treasure Quest and the odd gripe from MPs who suddenly realised they were losing a handy platform in general election year.

All that broadcasting talent and community involvement unleashed since 1980 just gone to waste. Surely giving programmes surviving at all levels a coat of Norfolk paint could at least suggest the BBC has genuine regrets over the way it has doled out that “Mummerzet” treatment in drama productions allegedly set in Nelson’s County over the years.

I’ve been playing a parochial hand for quite a while. To be honest, it’s more of a compulsion as it invades most of my waking hours. It all began so innocently as I tuned into self-taught sons of the soil among those hemlock-laced lanes of childhood. They put their own rustic spin on national and international events of considerable significance.

They knew who to blame for that rumpus over the Sewage Canal in 1956 but couldn’t work out why Swaffham figured so little as part of that there Common Market soon after: “Hent they got enuff stalls?”

They realised the Cod Wars  against Iceland might put up the price of fish and chips at local outlets bur refused to accept that the Russians sending a  dog into space would do anything to improve the weather. “Barking mad, the lot on ’em!”

Their lyrical corruption of the other language I was learning at school  suggested they needed free electrocution lessons to avoid that new mechanical monster, the concubine harvester, and a roll of Anthrax off the top  shelf in our village store. Coronation Milk went better with tinned peaches than that evacuated stuff according to semi-skimmed workers.

Even regular church and chapel supporters joined in with details of a parson being induced before he could celebrate Holy Commotion. This must have given rise to the story of an old churchwarden being asked by a newcomer if they had matins in his place of worship.

“No.” he replied, “We hev lino right up ter the altar.”

My personal odyssey soon moved on from wisdom across the headlands to spicing up popular culture with a Norfolk flavour. The wonderful world of wireless turned me into a keen accumulator of homely programmes that really were the cat’s whiskers when it came to a distinctly local sound.

I could cram Much Binding in the Marsham, Down Your Weybourne, Dick Barton Turf and Desert Island Diss into one sitting before Brooke at Bedtime. This was years before Round the Horning.

I could cite a growing appreciation of local geography by singing, whistling or humming  family favourites like Blow the Wind Southery, Pennies from Hevingham, Concrete and Cley, Move Over Larling, Anmer Down my Walking Cane and It’s A Long Way to Little Snoring.

The arrival of mains electricity had to shoulder the blame for television treats like Dixon of Docking Green, The Forncett Saga, Take Your Pickenham, All Gasthorpe and Gaiters, No Heydon Place and The Rockland Files.

Now I was on a roll, ready to impress anyone who’d listen at grammar school with a list of favourite dramatic productions in rehearsal among Norfolk’s seriously cultural set. Cue Weeting for Godot or Waiting for Godwick. My lines were perfect: Scole for Scandal, Chicken Soup with Barney, Fransham Without Tears, The Trowsetrap and The Lady’s Not For Burnham.

No reason why William Shakespeare (born at Stratton-on-Strawless) should turn up his educated nose at this valuable exercise. Curtain up on Much Ado About Rougham, The Happy Mawthers of Winfarthing, Bit Dark Over Will’s Mother’s (The Tempest), The Pedlar of Swaffham (The Merchant of Venice) and All’s Well that Bawdeswell.

There we are, culture with a good old coat of Norfolk paint …. And it doesn’t really hurt if you finish up overcome with emulsion!