Dicon was born in Nancledra midway between Penzance and St Ives in the middle of the peninsula. In the 1930s he worked as an assistant at the Leach Pottery, and then with the potter Michael CARDEW in Ghana during the majority of the war years.

With his brother Robert NANCE (Robin) they re-started a cabinet-making workshop on the quayside at St Ives in 1946 (Robin having started one in 1933 which was suspended while Robin was in the Army (1940-6). They not only made pottery wheels for the Leach Pottery, but also showed the paintings of their friends, George Peter LANYON and others, on the walls of their shop. He was a Founder Member of the Penwith Society in 1949, and after a teaching stint in Thailand for UNESCO, he returned to St Ives as an assistant to Barbara HEPWORTH until 1971.