Departures The Fred Dibnah Story


Departures

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It's going! Going!

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HE TOOTS HORN

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Done for!

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Did you like that?

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Apart from his work on chimneys and spires,

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Fred Dibnah has devoted his life to steam.

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Over 20 years, he rebuilt one steam-engine and got well on the way with another.

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Now, at nearly 50, he had achieved the ambition he had cherished from youth -

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this great steam-driven workshop in his backyard.

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Made from scrap and the surviving parts of Victorian machines,

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it now had the capacity to restore whole fleets of steam-engines

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and to serve the Fred Dibnahs of the future - if there are any - for centuries to come.

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Over the years, Fred had by no means neglected the improvement of the family quarters.

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Since you were last here, I bought me house off the Earl of Bradford.

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This character rung up from Cambridge and said, "We're coming up to have a chat with you."

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He said that Mr... I forget his name, but he wanted to look at the steam-engines.

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And I thought, "Ah, Cambridge! They're big steam men down there!

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"They'll come...up and...I'll impress 'em with me steam-engines,

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"and get a bit knocked off price of t'house."

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So, up they came... It were raining that day, so I didn't go to work,

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and we had t'steamroller ticking over in the shed,

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and this man from Cambridge said, "Well, how much will you give me?"

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You know, for this 'ere house.

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So I went and showed him all the bad points.

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There's a nine-inch bulge at the back. It's a bloody wonder it's not all in the river!

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Time went by and, cutting a long story short,

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we got it...for £5,000 - all this land and everything!

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So, now it's up to me to stop the bloody thing slipping into the river.

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Right... Next one, Donald.

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Mind you don't fall off there.

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You've got the square bit out the middle. It don't matter, really.

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Just... Just keep screwing.

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It'll do, that.

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Hup... That's it. Beautiful.

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When we first came, you know,

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we noticed this great, nasty bulge on the back,

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and I thought, "I know why they gave me this cheap! Bloody back's going to fall out!"

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Then, one day, I were lying in bed and there were one 'ell of a bang!

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And I thought, "The outside four-and-a-half's fell out of the bloody place!"

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But it were actually a gas explosion, you know!

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The wife came running upstairs screaming, no eyebrows...!

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A big hole burnt in t'front of her dress!

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Bloody gas cooker had blown up!

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Hitherto, Fred had regarded his domain merely as a shelter for his steam-engines and his family.

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Now he began to feel pride in its possession and its idyllic situation.

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My house is...just over there, behind all them trees.

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In between there and here, there's the river. This is the cemetery,

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where we'll all end up eventually.

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In here, actually, there's the first, the only man, I think, in Bolton to be killed by a lion!

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Seems they'd not got the preparations right, like.

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They got this big cage at the local wakes week in 1890 or summat...

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And they had these braziers with big, long iron rods. And somebody forgot to light the bloody fires...

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Anyway, the lion got the man and they had no red-hot iron rods to get it off him.

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So he ended up in 'ere, poor fella.

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Me Dad used to tell me about a big flood we had that washed one or two of them down the river.

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I don't know if there's any truth in it, but I know that down on that river bed

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there's all sorts of gravestones.

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When my time comes, you know,

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I think...you couldn't find a more peaceful cemetery than this.

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It's nice and quiet, they cut the grass regularly...

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Not that you'd notice when you're six foot under,

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but it's nicer than being turned into a little plastic bag or tin can full of fag ash, innit?

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Besides, I'd like to build me own gravestone,

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make one like a chimney with the lightning conductor on and everything! Very fancy!

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-One with a beautiful, fancy top on it!

-CHURCH BELLS CHIME

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The place is getting a bit overcrowded now and we decided that we'd build a new wing on it.

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The thing is, with it being a listed building, everything's got to look just right.

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So, you need second-hand bricks. After many months of looking around

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at various buildings that were about to have the big hammer,

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we found about ten houses in one row and six of 'em had never been messed about with or anything.

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The bricks were a perfect match for the existing ones.

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So, we went with two Land Rovers - the wife, me, Donald, me father-in-law and another lad -

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and we literally took the front out of six of 'em and brought 'em back here to build the place out of.

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Then the lad who did the drawings got carried away with his fancy stonework - and stone's expensive.

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But then we met this vicar, who said,

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"I've got all these gravestones here. Take 'em if you like."

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So they now are the window heads, the mullions and the window bottoms.

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I'm a bit worried the bloody place will be haunted when it's finished!

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-Ah! That's it, is it?

-That's it.

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Yeah... Do you think we'll get it off him, like?

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-I'll have a word with him. I'll see him tonight, cos I'm doing a job for him.

-Good.

-When I came up last time,

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-I spotted it, but didn't say anything to him then.

-Yeah, it'd be just right, eh?

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Wonder if he's got another one somewhere.

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-Do you think we can get it off him?

-Yeah, cos I know the owner.

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He's a teacher. He mentioned that he'd like to bring the kids to your yard to see the engines.

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-So, I could work a deal. He can bring the kids down if he lets you have this stone ball...

-Yeah!

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I'm game if he is!

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-OK?

-Yeah.

-This is where the Tarzan act comes in, eh?

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Right...

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That's it.

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-All right?

-Yeah, got it.

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Now... This is the one.

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You all right, Fred?

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..Got it.

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-Right...

-We've to get it on that pin.

-Yeah.

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Wait a minute... We might all end up with big wotsits if...!

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-..That's it.

-How's that?

-Superb!

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-How does it look?

-Looks all right from up here.

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­ These are terrific, aren't they?

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Yeah, better than the other thing!

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-Let's go downstairs and look at it...

-Yeah, from across the road.

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Don't think it'll blow away so easy, will it?

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BLAST OF STEAM WHISTLE

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DOG WHINES

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Every summer, when the children were young, Fred and Alison made the epic journey

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at a stately 4mph to a steam rally at Chelford in Cheshire.

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A steam-engine, really,

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gives you... sort of a form of immortality.

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To actually resurrect one from a pile of rust,

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you know, you've got your stamp on it.

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When I'm long dead, they'll still be here...

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Even if they drop the bomb, they'd blow all the houses down,

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but they'd just roll this into some ditch.

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Someone would eventually find it and say, "Hmm, this is interesting!

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"I wonder when they made these!"

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You've got to have a very good wife if you have a steam-engine...! One that understands you!

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When I got married, things were a bit rough as far as steam-engines were concerned.

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Divorce proceedings were imminent on quite a lot of occasions.

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-But as the years rolled by, Alison, me wife, has got to like it all.

-STEAM WHISTLE

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-ALISON:

-I have a good mother and she used to help me a lot.

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Or when we had no money, cos something was bought for the engine,

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I could always go and get food off her, or she'd fetch me something round.

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And she'd see kids were OK for clothes. And me sisters would fetch me clothes for them.

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The steam men, with the engines, very few of them are married.

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They think that women and steam-engines don't mix

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and they tend to look down on any wife that arrives.

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They think you might get them to get rid of their engines.

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I decided when Lorna was 18 months there was too many drunken men coming round,

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so it was either the children and me or the drunken men, and the children won.

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So the drunks went and the girls ended up in the coal bunker - a victory for family life.

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BAND PLAYS THEME FROM THE DAM BUSTERS

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Right, come on over. You can get out now.

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We have a friend, Eric Marshall, who sort of... He grows radishes.

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Right nice bloke, he is.

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We called him the radish king. He got his own back on this fella.

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Filled his bloody coal bunker up wi' radishes!

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Where's your dad? Have you seen him or have we lost him?

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Bloody thing would do about 70mph.

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He went along t'motorway one day and he set fire to a field!

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Caused three car crashes and burnt a power supply down...

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When they caught up with him, 70 miles further on, he said, "It weren't me!"

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We've had some fun down 'ere - no doubt about it.

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-Yeah.

-Poor old Jim, dead and gone now. He was there, and we had a few yobbos round at night.

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And they said, "We're going to get on this engine and drive it." Jim said, "No, you're not." He was about 73.

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-He had a finger missing, didn't he?

-Yeah, that was an engine.

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So he's stood on his engine, and these lads were, you know, "We're getting on!"

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And he just got hold of the fire shovel and he went BANG, BANG!

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I forgot to fetch me vegetable knife from home.

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You can't remember everything.

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He backs the engine up the field, top gear, straight through this gate,

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where you have to take a sharp, right-hand turn. So, he had a go and went straight into a battery house.

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Bloody hens flew everywhere! I'll never forget it!

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-Fred, got a minute? It's raining and the quilt's wet.

-Pull the mattress off t'shelf, then.

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-Fred, it'll wash it up!

-They're all wet.

-Are they?

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-Yeah.

-Bad?

-Well...

-They won't be that bad, will they?

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-Leave the bucket there till it's stopped dripping.

-But there's TWO drips.

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-Put the bowl on t'other one.

-I'm using it for the potatoes.

-Well...

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-What about that bucket there?

-It's...

-It don't leak.

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-All right, but it's dirty.

-Well, the beds are better dirty than wet.

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-Bloody sun's stopped shining, hasn't it?

-It'll be right tomorrow.

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-It's doing the ground good.

-Making t'bloody grass grow!

-Aye!

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It's the only way you can find out, Fred, if your caravan roof leaks!

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All over my bloody bed, it is!

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-Depends what side you've got the missus on!

-She sleeps on the floor!

-LAUGHTER >

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That's it....

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For Alison, the fun of steam rallies was diminishing.

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Her thoughts turned increasingly to sunnier vacations,

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beyond the range of Fred's roller.

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I've said every year, "I would like a holiday, Fred."

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And he wouldn't like a holiday.

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Other wives go on holiday,

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so why can't I?

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What Alison had in mind was this sort of thing - Greece or suchlike.

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But that was the snag. Fred had been abroad once, when he was in the army...and he didn't like it.

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There's nothing in Greece for a man like me.

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I believe there's some decent buildings, but I couldn't bear...

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lying there on the bloody sand all day. It isn't really my style.

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A bit vain, people like that, aren't they?

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They lie in the sun, so that when they come back to grotty old England, everybody'll think,

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"Where have they been? They must've been abroad!"

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It's all one-upmanship, innit, the holiday job, really?

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With each passing summer, Alison's thoughts turned to the golden beaches of the travel brochures.

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She was determined to get there.

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Me and the girls are going to Greece. I've waited 18 years...

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We're going to enjoy ourselves, get sunburnt.

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Then, of course, we'll be going to Stockport, to an engine rally.

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Er... He'll enjoy it.

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And I'LL enjoy MY holiday!

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Well, he IS grown-up now.

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He'll do all right. He says he can cook eggs and chips... He'll be OK for drinks,

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as long as he remembers he's got the kettle on...

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I just booked, and told him, and when he started complaining, I went and paid for it.

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He's very upset about it. In fact, it's making him ill!

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Yeah, it is!

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But I'm still going on holiday!

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TRADITIONAL GREEK MUSIC

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TV: 'Thunderstorms brought flooding to several main roads -

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'in places, up to two feet deep.

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'The fire brigade had many calls from householders,

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'and some people had to paddle to work.'

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CHOIR SINGS HYMN: Abide With Me

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# Swift to its close

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# Ebbs out life's little day

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# Earth's joys grow dim

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# Its glories pass away

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# Change and decay

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# In all around I see

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# O, Thou who changest not

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# Abide with me. #

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Well, on their arrival back from Greece, they informed me that, er, they want a divorce, like.

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They don't like the world of steam-engines and factory chimneys.

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I don't know why. Bloody chimneys have kept us alive for 18 years.

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Life, really, at this moment in time...

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It had got to a stage where we could more or less semi-retire.

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Now it looks as though I've got to get a mortgage and work for another 18 years to buy Alison a house

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and fix her up in the style she's got accustomed to.

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Fred began to muster his assets, including,

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regretfully, his 1927 AJS motorbike.

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The same machine, round about 1924, but with an overhead-valve engine, won the Isle of Man TT.

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It were made when England made the best motorbikes in the world. Not so now.

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I once went to Leeds on this, you know! Yeah!

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Hell of a journey. Over Blackstone Edge... Bloody winter and all!

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Yeah... Me hands were frozen t'handlebars.

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HE TOOTS HORN

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This bike, up till 1969, I rode for ten years every day when I first started steeplejacking.

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I'd take the ladders on the wagon and go to work on this. I always knew it were worth a bob or two,

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and now that I'm a bit desperate for money, it's got to go.

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It's a great pity, really. But I suppose at an auction, like Sotheby's, it'll be...

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If two lunatics bid against each other, I might make a couple of grand.

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It were a shame, really. It's one of the few things that I've had to part with that I really liked.

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We got the thing there and there were that many people, you couldn't move hardly.

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And I got £1,700. It were knocked down at 1,700 quid.

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It was a man from Macclesfield.

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I'll weigh that into the building society for the war efforts.

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I'll not see any of it,

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but at least it'll help with the payments...and all...

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I went away the other Friday to open a solid fuel shop at Bury and when I came back she'd moved on.

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Alone with his thoughts, Fred came to see celebrity business stress

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as one cause of their domestic troubles.

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AUDIENCE APPLAUDS

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-Oh, the computer!

-LAUGHTER

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People have said to me, like,

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"You looked out of place when you were doing that" and I've actually felt out of place.

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Bloody glamorous grandmother contests! What the hell do I know?!

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You know... It's not really my scene.

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CATS MEOW

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I don't think they like me. I don't think they like me, cats. It's stuck in!

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'Sometimes the bloody pressure of it all, it gets a bit too much.

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'I don't think Alison was a person who liked excessive pressure.'

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You know, she were more a person who were quite content to sit there watching telly and...

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you know, just go out and do the things that she wanted to do...

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without having this extra load thrust on her back.

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And there's no doubt whatsoever, she were a good help to me.

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-Fancy a go on that?

-Yeah! No!

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Did you enjoy that? A little bit tight, weren't it?

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Here you are. We'll just have these then we'll zoom off.

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Give us a kiss, love?

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You all right?

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You should always ask who they are.

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Close your eyes.

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