THE award-winning face of multiple supermarket campaigns has died aged 77.
Bill Legge’s family has shared an emotional tribute to the farmer who appeared on the back of Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference crisp packets.
He also featured on the Potato Lovers website and as part of Morrisons Cafe adverts.
Paying tribute, his family said: “He will be missed for his sense of humour, his kindness, his love of his family and the Fens, his level headedness and his ability to work with others.
“We would like to thank his many friends and everyone on the farm for their support, loyalty and kindness over his lifetime, especially in the last few weeks.”
Bill passed away at Addenbrookes Hospital on April 3, with his funeral taking place on Thursday (April 17).
He had run Further Fen Farm in Southery, Norfolk, for more than 25 years, championing environmentally friendly methods against the odds.
It was the final of three different farms he managed, having worked the lands since he was a teenager, inspired by his dad Les, himself something of an innovator.
Green-fingered Bill worked closely with wife Judith, but took a step back from farming to become her full-time carer in 2021 after she suffered an accident with a forklift truck.
He had been inspired to become a farmer by Les, who bought one of the first self-propelled drills allowing him to attend thousands of acres of beans, chicory, sugar beet, onions and carrots.
And also founded business A.L. Legge & Son on some old church land.
Bill – who initially took over his dad’s farm, as well as a tenancy of Wannage Farm – won multiple awards.
He and Judith also welcomed three children Karen, Peter and Hannah.
They moved to Further Fen in 1999, with Bill also becoming chairman of Downham Market Training Group.
He went onto develop an interest in environmentally friendly farming in his 50s, creating a reservoir and two wetland areas.
Miles of hedges were also laid, with Bill proving doubters wrong that his commercial farm could encourage wildlife and improve the environment.
In 2012 he won Farm Conservation Norfolk’s annual Ian MacNicol Award.