Backstreet Mechanic Fred Dibnah's World of Steam, Steel and Stone

Me great interest in the mechanics of the past

stems from when I were like our Jack, when I were quite a small boy

going along the canal from Bolton to Bury and seeing

the remains of all the old coal mines and cotton mill engine houses.

Some of 'em were actually still working, so it made it even more interesting.

That's really why I've created all this lot here in me back garden.

It's a vain attempt to hang on to childhood memories, I suppose.

Fred's garden was unique. It was all assembled from scrap

and the cast-offs from old mills and factories,

but it was probably the finest working example of a steam-powered engineering workshop in the country.

But more than anything it was Fred's playground,

a place where he breathed life back into rusty old machinery and steam engines.

FANFARE

And when he went to Buckingham Palace to receive his MBE,

he'd got no doubts about why it had been awarded to him.

I can hardly write but I can do things you know.

I'm a mechanic. I'm a backstreet mechanic.

Aberdeen University gave me an honorary degree in backstreet mechanicing

and now Birmingham University have given me a degree in backstreet mechanicing so it'll do for me, that.

And now you've been honoured by the Queen?

Oh, aye, yeah, got an MBE as well, yeah.

All engineers are backstreet mechanics

to a greater or lesser extent.

We all like tinkering about with...

We're a practical profession.

it's nothing to be ashamed of, to be a backstreet mechanic,

it's something to celebrate. He's a very good mechanic

and an excellent engineer.

You go to so many museums that appear to be dead, nothing happens.

I mean, lots of them try their best

and actually do manufacture bits of things

but this lot here, it all works full bore

and you could drill a two-and-a-half inch hole through an iron bar

or you can forge a big lump of iron two inches square

or saw a piece of stone in half four foot thick.

So I don't think I've done so bad out of the junk

that would all have gone into the scrap yards but for me.

Fred's machines, of course, he didn't pay a lot for them

because they were always archaic, not wanted, belt-driven,

but it were ideal.

It suited his steam engine,

which, as you've seen, it drove to ever corner of the yard.

Nearly every nut and bolt in all of this place, I know where it come from -

every piece of shafting and every wheel and every boiler and every spanner, nearly,

and it sort of grows because once you've gotten established,

people ring up and say, "Do you want a bucket full of big spanners

"that are quite obsolete and nobody wants any more?"

Yeah, he had drilling machines

and he built a machine for cutting

with a diamond wheel for cutting stone

that were round the back of one of his sheds.

Oh, he could do anything.

As we know, he were wonderful with metal or stone or wood, incredible.

Gravestone quality.

One of his favourite pastimes

was to journey down to a local scrap yard and he'd be a devil, actually.

He'd be rooting round through all kinds of boxes and skips

He'd be rooting round through all kinds of boxes and skips searching out little bits of brass and copper,

little bits of offcuts. I went with him once or twice

and the people who own the scrap yard obviously thought a lot of Fred

because they never charged him, or if they did it were coppers

for these odds and sods and bits of leftovers.

You don't want paying, do you?

Do you ever pay, Fred? Is there a fee?

I think the garden was Fred, in essence, who he was.

More than the engines, actually,

because those things in the garden have been gleaned over many years

and just basically bits of scrap,

but then they came into Fred's capable hands

and he breathed life into them again

and turned them into something special,

which meant a lot to him, of course, with his skills.

I find them hiding in damp, wet corners of disused spinning mills.

And every time we were away from home,

Fred was very anxious to get back

because he always had another project on the go.

So they meant the world to him, really,

and it was like having a new baby, in a way.

If anybody had come down to the garden and say to Fred,

"Oh, we've got a milling machine or radial arm drill

"and its going to get smashed up. Can you rescue it?"

Fred would come indoors and moan to me and say something like,

"Well, oh, I've no room for it, but I'm not having it smashed up."

So we'd have all these things outside that would accumulate.

Certainly before my time,

he'd been building up the garden collection

for many, many years, hadn't he?

That's Fred, in essence, that garden, who he was.

I think the biggest influence is his love of steam.

And his interest in how it can be used

to power large-scale machines.

That's what influenced everything that he did.

It would be very easy for him to power his workshop with electricity,

but he chose to build a great big enormous boiler,

great big enormous flywheels and drive his machines from that.

It probably took him something like three hours to fire up his workshop,

which he could have done with the flick of a switch.

So I think steam was the big driver in his life.

I recognised straightaway

there was something unusual about this chap.

I had examined many restored old boilers and engines and bits and pieces like that

I had examined many restored old boilers and engines and bits and pieces like that

and when I came to meet Fred, I realised that he was an extremely thorough person.

The preparation of the boiler was beautiful

and the repairs he carried out were excellent.

So I was quite impressed with him straightaway.

I thought it was quite amazing

that from an ordinary garden, he'd been able to build this workshop.

I was most impressed with all the machined tools he assembled there

and the structure to drive them which were made out of telegraph poles,

which would bring about many problems with shaft alignment on such a scanty structure,

but he made a rigid job of it and it worked perfectly.

I'm very fortunate having all this antique obsolete machinery

that still works very well, you know.

I could make most of the parts.

I mean, this thing behind me,

even though it don't look it, it's almost new.

There's only part of the boiler original,

the new rims on the wheels, the new solid tyres,

the cylinder block which, of course, is in the other shed

is almost brand new.

All new sides and new end covers and new piston rods and new valve rods.

It was quite difficult at times.

Fred would come in and he always had some project going

and machinery would be going in the background all day

and we always had a problem with that,

or rather I had a problem because I'd be stuck in the office

trying to work and make telephone calls,

and Fred was just like a small boy outside, really,

playing with his machines.

When I first came here, Fred had maybe two or three helpers each day,

but later on, as time progressed and more work was done on the engine,

he amassed a kind of band of helpers

who were only too willing to come down every day

to which I referred to as Dad's Army.

They were all men of a certain age with flat caps like Fred

and they were great use and they turned out to be really good friends of Fred's

but difficult from a wife's point of view because you're the odd one out.

You're the one that's complaining if they're making too much noise, like a mother figure,

like small boys outside wanting to play with their toys

and they just wanted to carry on regardless.

Fred would approach a project which possibly he'd never had

any experience of before and just throw his self into it, in a sense.

He might be making a part for one of the traction engines

and really he didn't have the special engineering skills

but he would dig out an old book

and read in general how you went about the job

and then make a start.

If he made a mess of it, he'd just start again.

He just wouldn't give up.

This is going to be more difficult than you think.

Some of the items he made for his traction engine took absolutely ages

and went through various stages of attempts and disastrous attempts,

got there eventually.

I mean, I did speak to an engineer once

who saw some of the work that Fred had carried out

on his latest traction engine on the boiler

and this man couldn't believe that Fred had actually fashioned

this particular part of the boiler by hand.

Pretty level, innit?

He just wouldn't believe us and Fred told him how he'd achieved the job.

He was still sceptical at the end,

yet we knew that Fred had actually fashioned this part by hand

over a long period.

So really he was admired as regards the way he would tackle any job

and would never think, "I've not done it before so I can't do it."

Go and have a try cos if we over-bend it,

it takes a bit of straightening out, yeah.

A backstreet mechanic, yeah.

I mean, there's good backstreet mechanics

and there's bad backstreet mechanics.

I think it's fair if he called himself that,

he was probably playing himself down

because Fred could turn his hands and do it.

There's a lot of people that'll talk about it but can't do it

and there's them that don't talk about it but can do it.

And Fred didn't just do it on his own engines.

The only steam engines that you can find today

are the ones that have been restored

and are running like in places like this.

This is in Caernarfon in North Wales

and it's one of the first attempts at renovating a steam engine I had.

I'm quite pleased with the result.

It's rather strange how I got the job, you know.

First of all I got an inquiry from Mr Wakeford who were the architect here on the site

and he said, "We've got a chimney in North Wales,"

and I said "Where's that?"

He said, "Caernarfon." I said "How big is it?"

thinking it would be something that we could make some money out of

and he said, "It's about 60 feet high."

I said, "Well, it's not really big enough

"to travel all the way from Bolton to Caernarfon for a chimney 60 feet high."

And then he said, "But we've got a steam engine as well,"

which put a different light on the matter.

When I came, you couldn't see the chimney for ivy.

It were rather reminiscent of a Cornish tin mine job, you know.

The man in charge, he said, "Give us a price for taking the ivy off

"and a price for looking at it and a price for doing it up,"

and cut a long story short, we did all of that and we got the job of renovating the chimney.

Then one day, it came on raining

and I sent me man for the key for the engine house

and we got in the engine house and looked at it

and sort of sorry, sorry state

and it had been vandalised and all the brass bits had gone.

Or I THOUGHT they'd gone.

What must have happened is the vandal must have got disturbed

and left it all behind and run

and then somebody else had collected it all up and put it in a box.

I found that next door,

but once I'd secured the contracts, I took it all back home to Bolton

and we took a shaving off here and then I shined the crank up here.

I don't really know how I did that now

because the state it were in were like corrugated iron.

He was very proud of his skills, the machines that he could run,

the parts that he could make, building his steam engines.

He made all the parts himself.

These are skills that are somewhat undervalued in our society today

and Fred tried to bring them to the fore.

Now I'm making square washers.

He believed that engineering was not about the theory,

but about the practical application.

There's nothing wrong with that for a hole in a piece of iron, is there?

He were an absolutely superb man whether working on a lathe,

whether he were drilling holes through a pin through a bolt,

whether he tightened bolts up, all the bolts had to go in, in the right order.

Everything had to be painted,

but prior to that they'd be greased, there'd be a nut to tighten down

so all the flats on the nut were all equal at the front.

Considering that he was mainly self-taught

and there wasn't a workshop machine that Fred couldn't operate,

it's unbelievable the skills he had, really.

I know that from people who taught at technical colleges

or other engineers who came on site and saw evidence of Fred's work.

They were always enthusiastic

and full of praise for the level of skill that he showed

and the finish that he achieved with items that he'd made,

from the pithead gear 30 foot high

right down to making his own sort of individual nuts and bolts for the traction engine.

Nearly everything big like crank throws and all of that

were all either done on a planing machine,

which worked very similar to this,

or a shaper like this.

Basically, it's a plane, the tool takes a shaving off the top.

Forging would come from underneath the steam hammer

and have ended up bolted down to this bed

and the tool ridden across it with a lot of force,

shavings flying everywhere and this is only a toy one, really.

In terms of the appreciation of making things out of metal

and making things work, he was very good at that.

There are some special skills involved

in getting old machines going and putting together

the remainder of old machines to try and make them go again

and that was something that he developed a whole range of skills.

Traction engines and locomotives in the Victorian times

were nearly always built in sheds like this

but actually a bit bigger, maybe eight or nine times as long,

but the machinery were all very similar to this.

Nothing were impossible,

like nowadays a man wouldn't be allowed to play about with something like this,

he might hurt himself, but they had nothing,

a very inventive time where they lifted things up

and got things about and everything they made were much over-engineered

and always very big and very heavy.

Even as late as the 1880s, you know, they still had this type of gear

and they had big overhead cranes

but if you study the old photographs carefully,

you'll see there's lots of chain blocks

and little arms sticking out of walls

with a feeble little set of chain blocks on

to mess about with weights like this.

Well, he was a self-taught mechanical engineer

and I think he connected with a lot of people,

a lot of people who've ever tinkered with a car or a motorbike.

He also, I think, connected with that interesting craftsmanship and skills.

We find that increasing numbers of people also want to connect

with craftsmanship and skills.

I think he was very good at bringing across the enthusiasm

and interest for making things work, solving practical problems

and I think that was very much his legacy.

This is a Marshall. Yeah.

It's got the usual Marshall ailments, hasn't it, on them radiuses there.

I wonder why Marshalls always crack there?

Those others do an' all on the throw plate, don't they?

Fowlers are perfect. Yeah, well. Never crack nor nothing, a Fowler.

What one have you seen cracked on a throw plate?

When you think about Fowlers, Leeds,

there were more traction engine builders or loco builders in Leeds

than any other bloody city in the land, you know.

Dozens of 'em, weren't there, you know.

Early days before any of our men.

Lots of local builders, you know,

built a few for them men up North East, you know.

All that employment, weren't there? Now there's nowt left at all, is there, you know.

Nothing. What do we do now? Yeah. Shopkeepers.

In his programmes, either Fred knew these people because he was involved with the people,

he'd found out people who could flange a plate

or rivet something that perhaps Fred couldn't do

and along the way these companies that were probably once huge,

great big companies employing thousands of people,

have dwindled down to just one and two now

because this sort of work isn't widely used.

Everything's gone smaller

onto silicone chips and printed circuits and things

instead of rivets and nuts and bolts

but Fred found these people and, yeah, Fred found them interesting

and then the TV found them interesting

cos people don't realise that it's all still happening around you.

Yeah, this is the differential wheel off the back end of me tractor

and this ring here is a brand new 'un

and all as I'm doing is just drilling the bolt holes to bolt it on the centre.

He could communicate, anybody could understand him

and he could put it over in a way so that everybody...

He didn't talk down to anybody,

he didn't explain things in too much detail,

but he could put things across so that everybody could understand.

Al the machinery in the 1870s and 1880 and 1890s

would all be very, very similar to this,

apart from the gearing would have been exposed, maybe.

They all relied on cow's bellies, you know, leather belts.

Nearly all locomotives and traction engines

have all been made by belt-driven machinery.

I mean, no fancy CNC tackle, you know.

Quite dangerous as well, you know.

I should imagine they had their fair share of disasters.

Now everything's got guards on and you've got to wear goggles and all that, like.

I think really we're breeding a nation of men

who aren't what they used to be, that's my interpretation of it.

They have to go to health studios to keep in good order, like.

As you see, this is fully automatic,

it's doing a grand job.

There's only one difference between this

and the most modern state-of-the-art thing that we've got now -

the modern one goes a bit faster.

The latest bit is the gearing that I've just done.

I made the blanks but I didn't put the teeth on.

I've not got a gear-cutting machine.

Nearly all the work on his engines was done in this workshop,

but there were a few jobs that were too big to be done here,

so for these he went to a local engineering company.

Yeah, when I think back, when I got it all them years ago

and teeth were like that on every wheel,

you could tell how many thousands of miles it must have done.

They're really sharp, aren't they? Aye.

They must have lost three-eighths of an inch off each side that's worn away.

Many people just didn't know that there were forges still operating.

They didn't know that rivets were being made

or imperial nuts and bolts or just all manner of bits and pieces.

The fact that there are traditional boiler makers still operating in the country

where steam engines can be repaired to the traditional manner.

Fred just showed people what was in that shed on the industrial estate

that was making all that noise and racket.

He showed people how we came to be where we are.

He showed that engineering was something not to be hidden away

and something to be proud of.

I think Fred's a really good role model.

One of my personal things about engineering is that we don't market it in the way that we should.

We don't market it as a fun profession.

Stay there. We market it to youngsters as being worthy, an earnest profession, worthwhile.

Now, if you're a young rebel of 15,

then I don't think you're that interested in worthy and earnest,

you're interested in fun and reward

and so I think Fred is always seen as quite a role model

because of his natural enthusiasm

and the way he talks about engineering things and the toys that he owns.

I think mechanic is not the correct word,

he was probably a backstreet engineer and by that he meant

he'd possibly no formal training in engineering but it was something which he'd picked up and read.

He was very accomplished in a lot of things that he did.

He tried no end of things and on the programmes.

If he was offered the chance of having a go, Fred would always have a go.

He was, you know, interested in having a play.

Perfect. He was a lot of a perfectionist, I tell you.

He'd put a rivet in

and if it weren't quite right,

it was "drill it and get it out" and they take some drilling and getting out, I can tell you!

You know, if you did something wrong,

he wouldn't start shouting and bawling about it,

he'd just say "No, that'll not do,"

and you had to do it again, you know.

So you quickly learnt only to do it once and do it right.

Getting better.

Oh, aye, many a time we put a rivet in,

"Ah, that's gone a bit wonky, that," he'd say,

"No, do next one, we'll come back to that."

And we'd put another one in, "Ah, that's better."

We'd do three or four more perhaps

and then he'd come, "Look at that one. Look at it! Come around here and look at it from here!

"Look, it's down a bit. Drill it out," he'd say, you know.

"Let's drill it out," and out it would have to come

and we'd put another in

and that was just because when you're manipulating your air-operated hammer,

rivet had gone a little bit one-sided, he'd done it himself,

but he wasn't satisfied with it so out it had to come.

Now, nobody else would have done that.

My favourite thing, Fred's contribution to the knowledge of things,

was watching him demonstrating in his workshop how you riveted,

how you created arches, those sort of things,

the practical elements of the Industrial Revolution,

to see things come alive that you've only read about.

One example was when he was corking on a boiler years and years ago,

but for me always wondering what this sort of mystical process was.

It was great to see somebody doing it in action and that he was doing it in his back garden,

probably something that would be the envy of many grown-up boys, was something quite special.

There were nothing in between the plates,

maybe a coat of red lead or summat like that.

Just the rivets alone wouldn't make it waterproof,

so all the edges of the seams had all got to be caught with this, a contraption like this.

In shipyards, they all must have been quite deaf and mad with the noise.

LOUD RATTLING

You can imagine 500 or 600 blokes in the hull of a ship all with one of these.

It must have been like bedlam, but any rivets that weren't quite finished off,

you could go around the edges with a corking hammer

and swell the metal up so that the water didn't come in.

Fred used to compare his work with what he had seen

on something old and interesting and he had an ability to say to himself,

"That's not good enough, I can do better than that and I'm gonna do it again."

That is, in fact, what he did.

The boiler on this was actually the third boiler.

He actually had two attempts at making it,

which he was not happy with

and the boiler barrel is the third one, so he knew himself he could do better.

And he would ask me things about riveting and about corking

and the peculiarities of flanging, for example,

and this were much used later on by Fred when he did his steam tractoring in recent years.

Now then, Fred! By gum, that's a lovely surprise. How you doing?

Just let me welcome you with this job.

Paul, can your turn your machine off, mate?

Have you met my old mate Fred? This is Paul. I've never met Paul before.

He's a boiler fitter. He's 50 years of age and our apprentice.

Aye, very good. He's the oldest apprentice in Great Britain.

He's a good lad. You enjoying it, your new apprenticeship?

Oh, aye, learning all sorts.

Yeah, well, it's very interesting, isn't it, mending things like this,

you know. There's not many people get chance to do it.

There's not a lot left of this one, is there? It's not as bad as some we've had.

All the grooving back down here, we've already started building it up with weld.

Back round here an' all.

'He were an observer, so if he had that particular interest,

'he'd look about him, from a railway bridge

'through to a riveted structure through to a Lancashire boiler'

and with reading about it, and studying it for his self,

then he had a hands-on approach

of experimenting with putting rivets in himself in his yard.

He eventually over the years developed his own method

of carrying out boiler work to absolute superb, 100%,

but there was nothing wrong whatsoever with the craftsmanship

that Fred put into his boilermaking expertise.

Are you going to show me you new boiler in your new Aga? Oh, we've got to show you that.

We'll go have a brew in there without a doubt, yeah. Aye, you'll like this, Fred.

1882 Lancashire boiler.

See you later then. Aye, see you later.

See you've done it then.

Magic. Yeah.

Good replacement for the Aga, that, I think, innit?

Well, it's the biggest and most unique kitchen radiator in Great Britain, so I'm informed, anyway.

We took it out of a mill down in Staffordshire,

but I were very pleased to get this cos it's a very rare Lancashire-made.

Yeah. 1882 and it's William Bland, you know.

Never heard of them but... No, neither had I.

Only five mile down road.

I've kept abreast of your activities on it

and lots of people have these wonderful ideas,

but they never come to nowt, but this has, hasn't it?

Oh, yeah, it's come to fruition.

It's complete with repairs and everything. Quite wonderful, eh?

Yeah. Is the bread good when you've done it?

It's good bread. Talking about bread, want a piece of oat bread?

Aye, thank you, aye. Watch you don't gam your teeth in. I most likely will!

Aye, looks splendid, doesn't it?

A pot of tea there for you and all, Fred.

Yeah, have you put plenty sugar in? Aye, there's plenty of sugar in.

Some would say you're sweet enough though!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd 2006

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