Ridley Scott's beloved Hovis advert gets a fully restored re-release

Three things to celebrate from the year that was 1973: the so-called Second Cod War fought between the UK and Iceland came to a peaceful end, the first British branch of Pizza Hut opened, and Ridley Scott gave the world one of the iconic adverts of the period.

The blissfully bucolic spot for Hovis, Boy on the Bike , is regularly voted one of the nation’s favourite adverts, and the head honchos at one of Britain’s biggest bakeries have decided to give it the uber-contemporary 4K treatment.

A vision of an England long since vanished, the newly-restored advert was broadcast on live television for the first time in nearly 50 years last night on ITV. Rather surprisingly, Sir Ridley himself (presumably) took time off the forthcoming Alien prequel to work alongside the British Film Institute’s archive team on the revival of a familiar old bike-riding friend.

The Guardian reports the noted director as saying: “I remember the filming process like it was yesterday, and its success represents the power of the advert.”

Hovis says the comeback is no mere exercise in collective and communal nostalgia, but a means of demonstrating its belief that its bread, its brand, and its advert reflect a “core message of hard work, family and the strength of community.”