A Sort of Fame The Fred Dibnah Story

It's going.

Go away!

HE SOUNDS HOOTER

Done for!

I'll go and get that thing.

You like that?

WHISTLE SOUNDS

Fred Dibnah, the Bolton steeplejack, spent thousands of hours in doing up his steam-engine,

to the detriment of other aspects of his life.

Lots of people I've got to know through the chimneys say I spend too much time with my steam-engine.

They tell me I should get on with their jobs! Which is true in some ways!

I have neglected my business and everything really for the sake of this ten ton of iron.

So it was bad news for family and customers

when, in 1980, Fred was spotted building an extension to his engine shed.

Their worst fears were realised.

It came to light that he had his eye on the rusted wreck of another steam-engine.

Have you given it any thought?

-Me last offer, mmm?

-Em...

-It's difficult talking about the money side with someone you know.

-Yeah.

We had this trouble before.

-Well, like, er, £2,000 sort of... you know... Am I getting any nearer?

-Yeah, you are, Fred.

-I was thinking of two and a half myself.

-Ah! I'll give you 2,300 for it.

We're getting rather nearer now.

We're getting nearer. Yeah, I think we could begin to think about that.

I think I'll have it, then. Give us a week or two to sort the money out.

-It's a long time since we crashed into each other.

-A few years!

-Two steamrollers.

-Could've been catastrophic, that. We sort of bounced off each other!

-A terrible bang, wasn't it?

We shouldn't have had as much pop as we'd had!

Your dad's new engine. Coming in the shed.

He'll make it all nice for us.

It's beautiful.

Have you almost done now?

-Want another roller?

-Eh?

-Want another roller?

No, not really. I think we can do t'rest with t'jack now.

I think it's time we went for a pint, actually.

There's steam coming off me.

How are we going to manage paying for all the bits and pieces?

-We managed before with that, didn't we? No more holidays.

-We never had any!

Fred geared down his steamroller to drive the machinery he'd use to make parts for the tractor.

The roller was 14 years' work. Fred reckoned - optimistically - that he'd do this job in less than four.

I can work in this shed sometimes till one o'clock in the morning.

I contain my hammering down to nine o'clock. I don't do any heavy blows.

I respect the neighbours!

Donald says you can hear this hammer in his parlour which he says is 200 yards away.

They're only bloody 20 yards away, so...

Mind you, their house is up for sale at present.

But now came a development no-one then saw the significance of.

The first of Fred's films had been shown on BBC TV.

Fan mail began arriving.

There's one here - somebody knows where there's a steam-engine.

Belongs to a blacksmith who died.

Then it says - quite funny, this... it says,

"His wife, who I feel was not sympathetic to his aspirations,

"I should imagine would be delighted to be rid of it."

We've got some here - cartoons, you know.

They're even doing drawings.

"It's no use - you'll have to get an ironing board, love."

Some of the correspondents spoke of the danger of Fred's job and asked how the family dealt with it.

When Jane was first born, he wanted me to walk to all the chimneys he was working at.

I pushed her round to the first chimney. I was frightened to death.

I came home and didn't go to another one for a long time.

You can't sit at home thinking, "What's going to happen today?"

You've to just put it to the back of your mind.

He's safer up there than he is on the ground sometimes.

I just believe in God.

I think if you behave well and you're good, you're looked after.

If you worry all the time about it, you will fast become a bloody nervous wreck.

I just don't think about it.

The only time when the wind gets up a bit is when you're going to do something particularly hazardous,

not just the everyday run-of-the-mill steeplejacking.

Climbing ladders and dancing on the tops of chimneys is pretty safe.

You've always got a feeling in the back of your mind that if you put one foot wrong you're dead.

It's half a day out with the undertaker.

On a lighter note, others who wrote were curious about how this partnership began,

and why they had eloped to Gretna Green.

It transpired that from his vantage points, Fred had long kept Alison under observation.

He used to tell me when I went to work or school and the clothes I wore.

I thought you were nice. Never thought I'd marry you, you know, but, sort of...

She actually came to the pub. I were propping the bar up.

-I'd had some Dutch courage and asked her out.

-"What are you doing tomorrow?"

-That were it, yeah.

She said nothing. "I'll meet you at the top of t'street." That's how it started.

We had a lot of mickey took out of us cos I'm, like, ten years older than Alison. It went on and on.

Their lot wanted so many at the wedding and so did our lot.

So one night, we'd had a pint or two,

and we decided to go and stay with a friend in Kirkcudbrightshire.

But when we arrived there, this woman said, "But he isn't here no more. He's gone back to Bolton."

There were only one bus a day up this bloody mountain, you know.

So we've got to then stay there - or they invited us to stay there.

And I slept with the farmer in his bed and he had a big nightie and one of them hats with a bobble,

like Rip Van Winkle and Alison slept in a big wooden cot... didn't you?

And I tried my best to talk to the old farmer about traction engines but he weren't that well up on them,

but he knew the whereabouts of one or two.

But the next day, what could we do? We couldn't lose face and come home.

So we decided that we would go to Gretna Green.

Alison, being a bit religious, decided that we'd have a do at the church.

We went to see the vicar but he weren't too keen, he didn't like runaways.

Sort of Alison did the talking and I just stood in the background. He weren't keen.

And over his mantelpiece, he had a bloody magnificent picture of the Forth Bridge.

I started admiring this picture and his sort of attitude slowly changed.

And he condescended to do the job. The great day come some weeks later.

When we turned up and knocked on the door, he were nowhere about.

Then we heard this shuffling and he appears at the door in his pyjamas,

and he said, "Och, aye, I'd forgotten about you. Hang on."

He reappeared with his cassock on and his bloody pyjamas sticking out.

So we got married with a vicar who wore pyjamas while he did the job.

MUSIC: "The Wedding March" by Mendelssohn

We've never looked back since.

WHISTLE SOUNDS

By now, Fred and Alison were beginning to discover a downside to being in the public eye,

which, in their time together, they never quite managed to accept.

Since we made our epic documentary, everybody wants to know about bloody steeplejacks and chimneys.

I don't mind doing things for Dr Barnardo's and other good causes,

but just lately I've had so many requests to these things

that it's interfering with me work and me new steam-engine.

I've not been able to touch it for many a week.

WHISTLE SOUNDS

Where is it? It's there.

-Good morning.

-Nice to see you again. Thanks for coming.

-You got the scissors?

-Yes, I have.

Thank you on behalf of Dr Barnardo's. I'll give you a badge.

-Have you got the champagne?

-Yes.

You're now a Barnardo helper.

If you'd like to step this way, the ribbon awaits.

Morning.

Never done anything like this before.

-Always a first time. >

-Yeah.

I now pronounce this venture duly going.

-I'll turn the sign around.

-That's right. Thank you.

You can have your scissors back.

-CHEERING

-Put your finger over it quick!

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good health.

Traction engines are good things - they don't answer back.

I can hit 'em with the hammer, you see.

And they don't say nowt.

-How much time do you spend on your traction engine?

-Oh...

-He'll have his breakfast with it, his dinner with it, his tea with it.

-Then go to bed?

-Yeah!

I could be out there all day and night.

Two in the morning, hammering away.

-Very understanding neighbours.

-Very understanding wife as well!

This celebrity business is all very well

if you could just escape from it every now and again.

My life at present now...

Whereas two or three years ago, I could go in my shed in the back garden

and start work on my steam-engine

and know full well there'd be no phone calls or anyone to mither me,

Now it ain't like that.

I just get outside and Alison's at the door,

"Phone for you." So I've got to traipse across, answer the phone about some after-dinner speech.

I've had very little money out of it, I've made very little.

In one instance, I got two sackfuls of rivets for my new boiler

as payment for an after-dinner speech at a Rotarians do, you see.

The odd bottle of wine, the odd £20 here, the odd £40 there, sort of style.

I'm looking at that business in that I'd be better off without it.

I'd be better of concentrating on my backyard operations.

With the approach of summer, another obstacle arose for Fred.

Alison wanted a holiday - their first since their honeymoon.

Now with the eldest of their three children in her teens, Alison felt it was time for a vacation.

So Fred found himself at Blackpool and under orders not be mulish about it.

Are you going paddling?

Caroline, are you going paddling?

-How about you going to watch her?

-There's no chance of me going in.

-Roll your pant legs up.

-No!

Roll your pant legs up.

My feet are black.

-Dad, d'you want to play football?

-Where can you kick it round here?

-It'll be all right in front here.

-Catchers!

Round here. Go on, Dad, play catchers.

Go on. Go and play with them for a bit.

'Really I get most of my pleasure out of looking.

'It's nice to see the kids all happy.

'But when I were little, I never liked going away.

'I used to have tantrums.

'I'd be thrown on the coach for Blackpool which I never liked.

'Maybe that's why I don't like it now. The damage were done early!'

Aw, Caroline's sand pies!

Now, are you having a run or are you walking?

..Thank you, sir. ..Let's have a look at you. Come here.

You go on Dinah, the little one on Peggy-Carol.

Are you ready? Hold tight. Hold them bars, girls. Go on!

That's a very energetic job - chasing them bloody things up and down all day!

How about the big wheel?

No! I'm not going up that!

Hang on! W-Whoa!

Oh, Daddy!

It's t'best thing I've seen since I came to Blackpool.

-They've got a winch like our one.

-Yeah.

There's good stuff up there. Everything's real stuff, like.

That bloody waterwheel's working.

They must've been round every scrapyard in Blackpool to get that.

-Oh, my!

-Fancy a go on that?

-No!

-Yeah...! No!

-Eh?

-No.

It only lasts for 12 minutes.

Oh, look at it!

I wanna go on the trampoline!

This sea air is making me tired.

Come on!

All these jolly holiday-makers in the pouring rain!

Can't see many sunbathers or paddlers!

-There's people on donkeys.

-Very brave!

The donkeys are out all day long.

Can you see the big wheel?

-We went up the big dipper last night.

-We can go again tonight.

The sea's coming in, whipping all the sand up.

You might be able to make nice pies afterwards.

I wouldn't go in off the end of that pier!

There it is. Let's get the ladders up.

THUNDER ROLLS

HAMMERING

Come on, love. Pull on this rope.

-Right.

-I'm getting wet.

THUNDER ROLLS

-Ready?

-Go on, pull!

Right, just hold it there a minute.

-It'll only take another two ladders, won't it?

-One.

Just another one on top of here.

-It'll not take so long this, love, now.

-Oh, good.

-Ten minutes.

-Right, leave go.

-All right?

-Yeah.

'One day, like, we got this phone call.

'This chap says, "I've a chimney I want knocked down." I said, "Where?" He said, "Blackpool."

'I thought, "Well... It's too far from Bolton."

'He rang again and mentioned that he were the owner of a boilerworks, a pressure vessel company.

'So I thought, "Oh, just the man that we need."

'Because we needed a new front tube plate for the new engine.

'So we popped over and showed him the drawing,

'and he said, "I'll make you that if you'll knock my chimney down."

'So we ended up here on our holidays!'

THUNDER ROLLS

What are you doing? Just get hold of the rope, love.

-I'm not tall enough.

-Well... Move there again.

Don't worry about that. Just take the rope and pull.

Take hold,

-cos all the weight of the ladder's gonna come on you.

-Right, with you.

Right, pull.

Higher?

A long way to go yet.

'Alison seized on the idea, you see, of coming to Blackpool.

'I don't suppose she bargained on this kind of holiday - pulling ladders up a chimney in the rain.

'She's pretty good at it. She has a bit of trouble tying the knots,

'but one day, some years ago, like, she actually helped me to unladder a 200-footer, you know.

'She volunteered for it! You have to take the rough with the smooth!

'And today's bloody rough!

'This is the price she has to pay for coming to Blackpool on holiday.'

BABY SHOUTS

I'm quite happy to do this. It keeps me off the sand, sort of thing!

I enjoy it other than sitting on the bloody sand watching the tide go in and out all day,

getting sunburnt.

Yesterday, the wife were a bit subdued about Monday, like,

when it rained all day and we all got wet.

Soaked through to her knickers!

-HE CHORTLES

-Which is true.

ORGAN PLAYS "I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside"

Ah, this is it, is it?

This is it, yeah.

-You've got the right thickness.

-Did the other one blow up?

-No.

-70 years of rain running down the funnel.

-You got your work out of it.

-Not me. Someone else did, though.

They just left it out in the rain. The boiler inspector wouldn't wear it. You need a new one.

Have you seen any numbers on the plate? He promised me a test certificate with a number.

It might be on the edge. I haven't seen it yet.

-I suppose he'll give me a ticket for it.

-It needs a certificate because it's a pressure vessel.

I better go and knock a few more bricks off t'chimney. See you.

-They'll make you a decent job anyway.

-OK, See you.

-See you.

They've made a splendid job of it, the holes are all right

and it's the right thickness. The last one we had made was too thin.

They've at least got the right lump of iron for the job.

I'm very pleased with the deal. I ended up with quite a few bobs' worth of engineering for nothing,

only knocking this chimney down.

It's turned out very nice for all of us really. They're happy down there on the beach,

spending me money and making sand castles and I'm happy getting summat for nowt.

They must be having a good time because at night they're all flaked out - into bed and unconscious!

So really it's worked out very well all round.

MUSIC: "Carnival Of Venice" by Briccaldi

Subtitles by Martin Maguire BBC Scotland 1996