Fred Dibnah

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Frederick Dibnah, 28 April 1938 – 6 November 2004,) was an English steeplejack and television presenter with a keen interest in mechanical engineering. When Dibnah was born, the UK depended heavily on coal to fuel its industry.

He was fascinated by the steam engines that fired many textile mills in Bolton as an infant, but he paid particular attention to chimneys and the men who worked on them.

He began his working life as a joiner before becoming a steeplejack.

He served in the Army Catering Corps of the British Army for two years until he entered his National Service at the age of 22.

He returned to steeplejacking after being demobilized, but he had limited success until he was asked to rebuild Bolton's parish church.

The resulting media brought a welcome boost to his company, assuring that he was still out of work. A regional BBC news crew filmed Dibnah in 1978 while making repairs to Bolton Town Hall.

The BBC then broadcast an award-winning documentary that followed the rough-hewn steeplejack as he worked on chimneys, collaborated with his families, and discussed his favorite hobby, team Steam.

His Lancastrian demeanor and a kinder, self-taught philosophical outlook were extremely popular with viewers, and he appeared in a number of television shows.

The demise of Britain's industry was mirrored in the demise of his steeplejacking trade, and Dibnah's economy was increasingly dependent on public appearances and after-dinner speaking to help his income at the end of his life.

In 1998, he delivered a seminar on Britain's industrial history and then went on to present a number of series, largely concerned about the Industrial Revolution and its mechanical and architectural heritage. At the age of 66, he died of bladder cancer in November 2004.

He is survived by his five children from his first two marriages.

Early life

Fred Dibnah was the son of Frank and Betsy Dibnah (née Travis), who were both employed at a bleach factory when they were first hired. His mother retired from being a charwoman at a gas plant. He was born in Bolton, Lancashire, on the 29th of April 1938 and grew up to the town's historic weaving and weaving of cotton. Dibnah was captivated by industry's sights and sounds as an infant, as well as the hundreds of chimney stacks visible around Burnden Park, and he paid particular attention to the steeplejacks he encountered on his way to school. Local children enjoyed playing around the numerous mill lodges (industrial ponds), which had once littered the area. Dibnah and some colleagues designed a makeshift diving suit from a crisp tin, a car inner tube, and some piping. They tried it in one of the lodges after being advised to remove it from the local swimming bogs, but were unsuccessful.

One of Dibnah's regular haunts was the Bolton arm of the Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal. By then, the canal had been mostly abandoned (the Bolton arm had been mostly closed in 1904), and Dibnah had occasionally dragged it with an iron hook on a line for 'plunder'. The bulk of the food was stored in his mother's backyard. Dibnah and his companion Alan Heap built a canoe from old bicycle wheels (cut in half to make the ribs), slate laths, and a canvas sheet from a lorry's back. Dibnah sailed the boat along the river Croal, much to his mother's displeasure. He once wowed his teachers by stealing the school's keys, and he cut new keys for every classroom door.

Following a three-year stint at art college, Dibnah's coursework was mainly focused on manufacturing, pithead gear, and spinning mills. On leaving college at 16, he was offered a job at a funeral parlour but was able to start working at a local joinery.

Dibnah had been following steeplejacks from childhood, and first saw a chimney fall from his father's allotment near Raikes Park. The steeplejacks cut the chimney off the roof and carved a hole in its base, propped with blocks of wood. They set fire to the chimney, destroying the supports and causing it to collapse. On this occasion, the chimney fell in the wrong direction, into the greyhound track's dog kennels, a local cafe, and a string of power cables.

When he first started as a joiner, he was given his first job that involved ladders. He was asked to point a garden wall and then the customer's house's gable end. He used several short ladders, struck with cord and hardboard, and even chopped off short ladders. This gave Dibnah valuable knowledge and his employer's growth to include property repairs. About 17-18, he scaled the Barrow Bridge chimney for a ten shilling bet. During the night, he carried two Union flags to the top and tied each to the lightning conductors. The Bolton Evening News published the incident, with a snapshot of Dibnah's feat but attributed it to Manchester University students's activities. Dibnah decided to replace the chimney stack at his mother's house on Alfred Street with one of his own ideas because his mother used only one fireplace, leaving four of the five chimney pots out of date. The flue needed to be maintained regularly as the single opening at the top of the new stack was only about 4 inches (10 cm) wide. On one occasion, he was cleaning the flue with a sack of bricks tied to a rope when the sack burst open, cracking several pipes and flooding his mother's kitchen. The home was sold and the council issued a preservation order on the chimney, which remains to this day.

Dibnah, 22, was sent into the army to complete his National Service and was given a position in the cookhouse. He spent six weeks at Aldershot before being sent to Catterick to learn the fundamentals of army catering. He was then sent to West Germany as a member of the 14th/20th King's Hussars. He begged his commanding officer to help the regiment's farmhouse (used for stabling horses and hounds), and he was soon promoted to a more permanent role as a builder and handyman. He dug a 35-foot (11 m) deep shaft into which the horse manure and dog faeces would be emptied and the cattle were also fed. He impressed his commanding officers by making a weathercock from army kitchen trays, but he was also chastised when he was discovered with a 1914 Luger P08 pistol he had purchased from a fellow soldier. He used to get parcels of alcohol and cigarettes from his mother, allowing him to keep the habits he had started when he started his working life. Although Dibnah initially objected to being called into service, he would later be more upbeat about the situation:

Later life

In 1996, Dibnah rebuilt the Barrow Bridge chimney, which was the same one he had scaled for a bet in his youth. At the top, he was also instructed to build a peregrine falcon nest. He was instrumental in making sure the chimney was made a listed structure later. He also became a well-dinner speaker and would sport his iconic dinner jacket. In a 1996 television commercial for Kelloggs, he appeared in a Kelloggs commercial.

However, the strain of living with a man so committed to his hobbies began to wreak havoc on his wife:

Susan was escorted out, taking Roger with her and leaving Jack with Fred.

By 1997, Dibnah was living alone, with no work or money. Manchester's income had been cut completely by the BBC's steeplejacking and filming business. He had, on the other hand, met Sheila Grundy, a former magician's assistant. She had been arriving a day before with her parents and young son to see Dibnah's back yard and signed the tourist's book. The two remained in touch and became friends; they shared an interest in steam; and Grundy was fascinated by Dibnah's tales of steeplejacking. In 1998, she and her son joined Dibnah, and the couple married on September 26th that year. When his youngest daughter, Caroline, came to see him at their wedding reception in Bolton, Dibnah was shocked and moved to tears. In the years after Dibnah's separation from Alison, he had no contact with his children.

He first met author David Hall in 1997. Hall had been raised in Manchester's Bradford district, and the two shared tales of aspiration in the latter half of the twentieth century. Hall said that Dibnah will not get any more television work on his life and that he should consider becoming a television presenter. The two men collaborated on new proposals for a program that would include Dibnah visiting important historical sites and talking with the men involved in the maintenance and repair of industrial machinery and architecture. In addition, the program will highlight Dibnah's working-class attitude and show him operating some of the machines he visited. Fred Dibnah's Industrial Age began in July 1998. The crew started in Bolton, Wet Earth Colliery, and later moved to various locations around the country, filming through the summer and fall of 1998.

The series attracted high viewing figures, with positive feedback, and the associated website became the second most visited BBC website at the time. A companion book was also published, and it was one of the year's top-selling history books. Dibnah confessed to finding speaking on a camera more nerve-racking than scaling a chimney, but Fred Dibnah's Industrial Age was a portent; he later appeared in several other television series. He had mounted his red ladders on the steeple at St Walburge's before filming began for Fred Dibnah's Magnificent Monuments, ready for an inspection. He was unable to finish the job due to filming for television now taking up a large amount of his time. He remained ladders at the church for many years and gifted them to the tradesman who later took over.

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