When he was recruited as assistant steward in 1966 to the car parks team, it was suggested that it would be a first step before moving to a “more interesting section.”

However, he became a key member of that team, becoming a steward in 1968, then assistant head steward in 1984, and later head steward until he stood down in January 2001. He was then elected an honorary vice-president the next year.

Mr Brigham was a leading member of the National Farmers’ Union for six decades.

His election to the top table at Agriculture House, Ber Street, in January 1991 was to prove a test of his leadership. Nationally, the NFU was closing county offices to implement a regionalisation policy.

It would end the cherished tradition of county secretaries. In almost 75 years, Norfolk NFU, which unusually owned its Norwich office, had just four county secretaries.

This regional strategy was fiercely opposed by many, who valued the role of its county secretary, then Ken Leggett.

Mid-Norfolk farmer Mr Brigham managed to persuade those pushing for an independent Norfolk NFU that a “go-it-alone” strategy was not feasible.

His family has farmed in and around Easthaugh Lyng for three centuries.

With his two brothers, Eddie and John, they built up an arable and dairy enterprise, including one of the county’s best fishing lakes, Catch22, on about 600 acres.

Dairying was the key enterprise at Walnut Tree Farm until last year when the pedigree Holstein Friesian herd was sold.

Mr Brigham returned to the family farm in the mid 1960s having worked briefly as an engineer after leaving school. He joined the Dereham NFU branch with near neighbour Peter Thomas and later both became chairman.

He was on the NFU’s dairy committees at county, regional and national level, which gave him invaluable insight into the industry. “If the NFU wasn’t there, we’d all be running around trying to invent it,” he said.

After Greenpeace’s destruction of a legal, GM trial of a six-acre crop of maize, he said: “I remember walking into a room of Norfolk farmers after that and they all applauded me. We had been participating in a legal trial and there was no question that farmers and the NFU were behind me,” he said.

Ironically, giving his later peace-making role, his father, Leonard and uncle Oscar, had left the NFU in protest at its support of tenancy legislation in the 1947 Agriculture Act.

He was heavily involved in local affairs, initially with the parochial church council of St Margaret, Lyng. Elected to the parish council, he served two lengthy terms as chairman, managed the former village hall and helped fund-raising for its replacement, which opened in 2018.

He was also a former chairman of governors at Reepham High School.

Married in 1967, he is survived by Carol, a son, Philip, and daughter Sarah, two granddaughters, Bethany and Hannah, and great-granddaughter, Primrose.

William John Brigham – January 2, 1940 to January 10, 2026.

Funeral arrangements to be announced.