A Lifetime's Achievement Fred Dibnah's Made in Britain

Fred Dibnah is on the final stage of his grand tour of Britain's industrial past.

He's in the mountains of Snowdonia in North Wales with his steersman Alf Molyneaux

and his sons Jack and Roger.

They're on their way to see a Victorian workshop,

the kind of place where an engine like Fred's would have been built.

To get there, they have to cross the Llanberis Pass in Snowdonia.

It's a big test for the engine, but it's performing well.

After a hard climb, they've reach the top of the pass, but they've used a lot of water.

It's time to fill the tanks. But up in the mountains, fire hydrants are hard to come by.

The only place they can get water is from a tap in the cafe up here,

but even then, there's still a problem.

We haven't got a hose pipe long enough.

Then the taps...you have to keep your thumb on them all the time.

Water must be desperate on top of this mountain.

With no hose pipe, they've got to use buckets,

and anything else they can get to get the water from the cafe.

And that means a lot of buckets to fill a 160 gallon tank.

How far off top is it?

We're nearly there now...

It's full!

Here y'are, Rog.

-Is it in gear?

-Yeah.

-Wait a minute then. Hang on, hang on.

Looks like it's going to rain, doesn't it?

-Mind that Land Rover.

-Eh?

-I've driven it on my own now.

Yeah, I'm just looking at how you've bashed me engine about.

Anyway...

We'd better put a lemon in because it's not...

With the tank full, its time to get dinner ready.

And they're going to cook it in the old traction engine men's way, while Fred keeps the fans happy.

I-E?

We've more potatoes than we've tin foil for.

Wrap that because we've more potatoes than we've tin foil.

Sorry about the oily finger marks, you know, make it more authentic.

You can do baked beans on the cylinder block, uh... spaghetti rings on the cylinder block,

eggs and bacon on the shovel, roast lamb, spare ribs.

I've never tried toast but we could.

Alf's early problems with steering the engine are long gone

and now, after nearly three months on the road he's a very proficient steersman.

Stood up there in the sky, driving that engine, steering it anyway,

it was just such a wonderful experience.

I'd have never got that experience without Fred.

Never.

Is the pub open?

As ever, it's been hot, thirsty work

driving down the pass and Fred's in need of some liquid refreshment.

-You burned it!

-Eh?

You'd think, what time are the licensing hours in Wales, you know?

I thought they were any time now.

Yeah, well some people, they do that well at the weekend,

they won't bother opening during the week.

-If I had glasses on, I'd be able to tell the time.

-14 minutes past one.

-Right, 14 minutes past one.

-Well, we may as well press on, you know.

-Right, we're going.

-I'm ready.

-Are you all right?

Is the break off on't trailer, Jack? Run it up here, we can open it up.

Now that the engine has been running,

it will do 15 mph with ease.

If it's in top gear, it goes very fast.

You should never try and change gear on a hill.

You read horrific stories about these super-duper men

in the old days being able to change gear on the run.

I don't think I fancy trying that.

Maybe on the level it's not so bad but on any hills, it's a bit fatal.

Slate has been quarried from these mountains for over 1,800 years.

But it was with the coming of the Industrial Revolution that the Welsh slate industry really took off.

Fred and his team are on their way to the Welsh Slate Museum down at the bottom of the pass,

but before they get there, those potatoes need looking at.

Try the...

Is it hot?

Let's have a feel.

That's done that, it feels... Feels like it's done.

They feel, uh, good.

-Get all the carbon off it and it'll be all right.

-It's too hot.

- Want a knife and fork? - A set of teeth would be all right!

-< Any pubs around here?

-There was one up the road but it were shut.

- There you go. - I don't need that.

- Do you want some salt and a plate? - A fork would be better.

-They're good inside.

-Eh?

-Good inside.

Not bad, actually.

That'll do till teatime, after they've been to the Slate Museum.

North Wales has been mined for both coal and copper,

but really, it's the slate industry that dominates the region.

This is the Slate Museum at Llanberis.

And it's based in the workshops of the old Dinorwig quarry,

and in my opinion, it's the finest Victorian workshop in the whole of Great Britain.

These workshops catered for all the maintenance work of the quarry,

which at its height employed over 3,000 men.

All the power came from this huge water wheel, built by the De Winton company in Caernarfon.

And the whole site was so big, it had its own railway.

Last time Fred came here, he had a go at dressing the slate,

but on this trip, it's the workshops he's interested in.

I've been here before, there's all sorts of interesting stuff.

How's that for a lathe?

-Oh, I bet you can do some on that.

-It's a fair 'un.

All the machinery in this mechanic shop

is driven by this line shaft which is an eighth of a mile long,

and all driven from the water wheel at the other end.

It's the type of workshop that my traction engine would be manufactured in.

Look at the size of that one.

That's for turning wheels, it's like a wheel lathe, you know the ones in the railway workshop?

-Yeah.

-That's the same thing but it'll only do one side at once.

Really, it would be wonderful to be let loose in here with about

60 tonne of iron plates of different thicknesses,

and about 50 tonne of coke,

a few 45 gallon drums full of oil,

and there'd be no end to what you could make in a workshop like this,

cos there's a machine tool of every description that you could ever wish to have.

Yeah, it's a pity it's a bit too big for our shed!

-Yeah.

-Well, most of the stuff in here is.

-Mmm.

Yeah. Blooming heck! Look at that, even in the olden days, no smoking.

You'd've thought they'd all be going with their pipes.

When you think about it, in 1870s, it would've been like bedlam.

them forges in there would all be roaring away from dawn till dusk,

sharpening all the chisels and all the tools and the drills for them thousands of men up the mountain.

Here look at this, the shaper, it's a double-ended 'un, isn't it?

You can do owt you want with this.

What would you make for the engine on this machine?

On our one, same thing at home, we've made the valve chest covers.

When we were doing the boiler, we had to make that piece

with a slant on it, we planed the slant on it with the shaper.

Made about 1870 or something like that.

A squirt or two of oil on that and put the belt back on which is not here no more, and it'll be away.

At it's height, Wales was producing nearly

500,000 tonnes of slate a year, four fifths of all British slate.

But this level of production came at a price.

Slate quarrying was a very dangerous occupation.

In one quarry alone,

363 men were killed in accidents in just 150 years.

Many thousands more were injured.

Dinorwig Quarry closed in 1969,

but some of the workers still live around Llanberis

and when Fred and Alf were down at the local pub, they met two of them.

-Hello, gents.

-How do you do?

-How are you?

-Aye.

-I saw you steaming down this morning. Where were you going?

We went to the museum workshop you know which is er, which is er...

-How did you find it? Lovely.

-Yeah. That's where I served my time.

I started in 1953 when the quarry was, you know, going...

There must've been a lot of opportunity for pitting and mending things.

Yes, I remember blacksmiths, six of them working flat out. It's nice to see who's still there.

Yeah, the bloody fires would hardly go out would they?

A true story about chaps from Caernarfon working in the quarry.

When somebody would come looking for a job, they had to knock on the door

of the manager's office and when he said, "Come in", they had to take their caps off.

-Oh, yes.

-To show respect for the manager.

Well, this chap from Caernarfon came in to look for a job,

he knocked at the door and walked in with his cap still on his head.

He said, "Do you know what you're supposed do when you walk into the manager's office?

"Take your cap off".

"I've come in here for a job, not a haircut" he says!

That's a good 'un, innit?

Yeah, the workshop's summat innit? You could really make a locomotive in there.

Oh, absolutely.

They've got their own foundry, their own millers and shapers and everything you could want.

I never knew anything about foundry work.

This chap came from Scotland and he was a foundryman at Colesbridge.

He showed me all the ropes about casting brass. I was lucky, that was the first day.

That's the best way. We've discussed this on this trip, about learning out of books and things like that.

-You can't.

-You can get a book written by an academic who's never done anything in his bloody life.

I mean OK, he's a clever bloke, he can write it all down.

But it doesn't really give you the final bit of how to do it.

Like having an old man stood at the side of you saying, "You're making a bugger of that"

is the best way to learn.

Like making the boiler on my traction engine,

I were very fortunate cos there were a lot of old men who were left over from Horwich Loco Works.

And they were all... knew how to work, smoking theirselves to death and all that like.

I'm glad I met them or we'd be in dire straights.

Unfortunately, they're all leaving us. There's no apprenticeships today.

They're having a rethink now.

-Are they? Yeah.

-I was in Birmingham University t'other day getting an honorary degree, and the chancellor,

and the vice chancellor and they're all sat there in three gold braid and I've got a funny hat on.

I saw that in the picture, yeah.

They were all Chinamen!

And seven-eighths of them were girls as well!

All with a degree in engineering. So what's going to happen to us?

We'll be shopkeepers and tourist attractions in a bit.

-Yeah, that's it.

-It's getting that road.

-It's funny how we're getting old with all these memories.

They've been on the road now for nearly three months. Alf's thoughts are turning to home.

Well, it'll be nice to get home and see how the missus is coping.

It wasn't... It wasn't work, it was an enjoyable holiday,

and a one-off lifetime experience.

Traction engines are... They are, they're just such amazing machines.

A lovely sight.

You've got to take your hat off to the people who keep them going, keep them on the road.

On the way home, they're passing one of the greatest Victorian wonders of Britain's waterways.

On our way back to Bolton, we're going to stop off at the world's first boat lift.

The Anderton Boat Lift was built in 1875

and taken out of use in 1983.

Then it was extensively restored,

then in 2002, reopened to the public.

The boatlift is a black and white Victorian iron masterpiece with a chequered history.

It was built as an alternative to a series of locks,

to bridge the 51 foot height difference between canal and river.

The initial plan to build a flight of locks was abandoned due to a lack of space

and the amount of water that would have been lost from the canal into the river.

The lift was built to solve the expensive problem of getting goods

from the River Weaver navigation, up to the Trent and Mersey canal.

The goods mainly were pottery from Staffordshire, and salt from Cheshire going back the other way.

Changes in the design took it over budget by as much as £50,000.

Really, I think they did quite well getting it up in 30 months.

I'm now going off to see Tim and Harry who are going to give me a ride on the thing.

-Aye. Good afternoon, Tim.

-Hi. How you doing, Fred?

-All right, mate.

-Nice to see you.

-Are you going to give me a ride?

-Yes, if you'd like to come aboard The Storyteller, we'll set sail.

-Aye.

Well, here it is, Anderton Boat Lift.

Yeah.

The lift has two caissons. Each one can accommodate two narrowboats.

What we're doing at the moment is in the aqueduct which was built in 1875.

When we were doing the refurbishment,

we did a lot of calculations to work out how strong these girders were.

-Victorian engineers were good but not quite that good.

-I know that.

Generally, they sometimes overdid it, and sometimes didn't overdo it.

We've had to add safety features like the buffer, just in case anybody were to...

In case you were a bit over enthusiastic.

We've seen from the photographs how they built this 1908 structure.

They had small derrick cranes.

-Yeah, oh, built of stick, yeah, yeah.

-Steam-driven ones on trestles.

Any bridge building were quite fantastic really, how they did it.

-The amount of men that died.

-That's right.

There were generally five or six on any project.

The large A-frames and upper gear deck were added to the structure

when the lift was converted to electric in 1908

after corrosion damaged the original hydraulic mechanism beyond repair.

The lift was sympathetically restored to hydraulic operation

in 2002 after an extensive £7 million overhaul.

They took the main A-frames off as one piece, like giant Meccano really.

-They actually took the whole thing down?

-Yes.

-And then re-erected it?

Re-erected it about a year later once everything had been refurbished.

When the caissons are full of water, how heavy is it?

Well, a caisson full of water weighs 250 tonnes.

Both caissons are balanced at the moment and all we do is transfer the oil from one piston to another.

-Here we are.

-River level.

So, we're all right now. We can sail away to Liverpool.

It's been a long trip, but the end is now in sight.

'Me and Fred work well together.

'Fred's very easy to get on with.

'He'd all this hanging over him, the terminal illness

'but he insisted on keeping going, he intended keeping going.

'He were determined he'd get round to as many people as possible.

'He's given as much and he's getting as much back.

'If you go past the school, the kids run to the railways, teachers and all, they were just as bad.

'It's just a wonderful feeling when you're on that engine and everybody's waving to you.

'Every time we stopped,

'people would descend on us,

'the joy on their faces, all the snapping they did all over the place.

'They just loved Fred.

'It was just a fantastic opportunity to get round to places where I would never have got to.

'Some lovely memories.

'Stood up near furnaces.

'If I hadn't have known Fred, I'd never have gone on that steam launch on Coniston.

'I can sit back in my chair and close my eyes and drive down Llanberis Pass with Fred.

'And on the engine like, going over Forth Bridge, the only steam vehicle to go over under its own power.

'Them are the real highlights.'

There are another couple of places to visit,

because it was around here that some of the most important parts of Fred's engine were made.

They've always had to know what the steam pressure was and how much water they had in the tank.

If the pressure had got too high or the water level had got too low,

the consequences would have been disastrous.

So the pressure and water gauges are absolutely vital.

WHISTLE BLOWS

I've had a few pressure gauges from Budenberg's in Manchester.

They make everything, all the works inside.

The only thing they don't do is the glass window in the front.

In its heyday, the company employed over 500 people,

but now, they're down to just 60-odd workers.

The Victorian workshops, where this sort of specialist work

used to be done no longer exists, but the skills are still there,

even if the work is now done in a modern industrial unit.

-That was one of the old gauges we used to make. These movements were hand made.

-A bit like clock making.

It certainly is, yes. And basically, the principle hasn't changed.

-Oh, no.

-From the early days.

-1850s, 1860s.

-Yeah, yeah.

Steam pressure gauges are still handmade at Budenberg's as they have been for over 150 years,

under a patented design filed by them in 1849.

The pressure gauge consists of an oval tube that's been bent into a circle.

And the steam is offered into one end of the tube, which thereupon it tries to straighten out the tube.

On the other end, which is blanked off, there's a linkage

that goes to a needle and tells you how many pounds per square inch of steam there is in the boiler.

Yeah, one day, about, must be about 15 years since or something like that,

we stopped for lunch somewhere near Knutsford, or somewhere that road, Cheshire like in this pub.

And this guy came in with a yellow silk scarf cravat, with red spots on, a big 'tache.

And he said, "I see you've not got one of our gauges on your machine."

And I said, "Who are you, Mr Budenberg?"

He says, "As a matter of fact, yes."

I said "I'll tell you what, mate, at home, I've got a lovely one,

"but it's really badly damaged."

He says, "You bloody chaps are all the same, you want it for nothing I suppose."

Then we had a pint and bid him good day.

But he said "I'll send a man."

And we give it him, he took it away and it came back and it were like

brand new, all shined up, new glass, new everything.

Back on the edge of Bolton, they've one more visit to make.

Some of the most important parts of the engine are the smallest,

like the nuts and bolts that hold it together.

And this is where Fred got the nuts and bolts for his engine.

Thomas Smith's, or Smith and Bullough as it's now known, is one of the old time nut and bolt works

which produce about 800 bolts a day.

One of the problems that steam enthusiasts have is that it's difficult to get the right

nuts and bolts for their engines because everything is metric now.

The beauty of this workshop is that they still make the old style imperial thread sizes

that a traction engine like Fred's needs.

There don't look anybody about. Shall I ring the bell?

-No, I know them all, they're nice lads.

-Oh, after you then.

-I know the way upstairs.

-Go on then.

Hello chaps, how are you doing?

Hello, Fred. Yeah, fine.

Is it all right if I show the BBC where my nuts and bolts come from, that hold my engine together?

Yeah, no problem at all.

You know, we'll not fall in any nut and bolt machines or owt like that.

-No, no. No problem at all.

-Is that OK, then?

-Yep.

Smith and Bullough's nut and bolt works are one of the few

companies in all of Great Britain that specialise in making one-offs.

Great big bolts with funny threads and big square heads and any fancy shapes you want.

Whitworth is a word that's practically non-existent now,

but you can get Whitworth nuts and bolts here.

I've come today to make a special bolt for my traction engine.

-Any one?

-Any one.

'In Manchester, Sir Joseph Whitworth perfected the standardisation of screw threads,

'so everybody could make nuts and bolts that were all practically the same.

'Up until the beginning on the Industrial Revolution,

'threads and bolts and nuts had been individually made.

'I've actually worked on machinery where each nut was made to fit the bolt.

'And when you screwed them on, they waggled about as they went down until they actually landed on

'the face that they were intended to go on.

'Whitworth realised that if all engineers could use

'the same machinery for making threads and measuring, mass production would be possible.

By 1860, all his measuring equipment and his standardised threads were accepted throughout Great Britain.

Where are we going now?

I think we're going to the stores.

Look at the size of them, Fred.

Aye. Them are nice, aren't they?

Beautiful. Made in Holland. Magic.

-Now then, John.

-Ah, Fred, what can we do for you this time?

-Scrounging again.

-Scrounging again.

For our tractor.

-Do you fancy a cuppa?

-Oh, aye. We'll have a brew while we're talking, yeah.

-Sort something out?

We used all them inch and a half, seven, five eight set screws what hold all the tyres on the tractor.

We had the back wheels in the back kitchen and it were

three inches deep, drilling all the holes, and putting threads down the holes for them to screw in.

But I'm pleased to say none of them have come loose and it's had a beating.

I was polishing round them only last night, you know.

Yeah, very good job.

Yeah, my tractor's more or less held together by Mr Smith's nuts and bolts.

I can't remember if I've paid for them or if they give them me.

I think it were postcards we got for that with your picture on it.

I'd forgotten about that, yeah.

Some history in here, you know? But we keep managing, keep going.

You're still here, that's the main thing.

Shall we go and have a look at the thread cutting shop?

Yeah. Mind that hose pipe.

He'll just squirt all up my leg.

Yeah, we'll see if he'll put some threads on the end of here for us.

Hiya Tony, how you doing? I hear you can put some threads on here for us.

-Do you want to put the thread on it?

-Now then.

-Underneath.

-Underneath, it's easier. You can get it balanced better.

Does it stop automatically? Oh aye, yeah. Like a lathe.

-That's the tricky bit, hitting it in the middle like.

-Yeah.

There you are.

A few weeks practice and I'll be all right, yeah.

Fred has come to the end of his grand tour and there couldn't be

a more appropriate place for him to finish up than here.

Because, as places like this modernise, they had to do away with the old technology,

like the line shafting that once drove all the machines here.

I remember coming by here about 20-odd years ago

and it was all lying in the yard, wasn't it? He said, "You can have whatever you want."

But Fred was able to provide a good home for it.

It's all going round. Drives 18 pieces of machinery in me garden.

From Smith Bullough, it's just a short drive through Bolton to get back to Fred's garden.

Since they left here three months ago, Fred and Alf have travelled

over 1,000 miles and the engine has had a really good road test.

But there's now a bit of fine tuning needed before Fred can set off on his most important trip.

He's going to complete his grand tour of Britain by driving down to

Buckingham Palace on his engine to receive his MBE from the Queen.

I've been restoring this traction engine for 27 years.

I've really fulfilled a dream now of actually touring the country,

driving it all over the shore, meeting interesting people.

But I've one more long journey to make,

all the way to London to meet the Queen and receive an MBE

for services to industrial heritage and broadcasting.

On my way to London, we've stopped off at the Great Central Railway,

which is one of the best preserved railways because it's got a double track like proper railways did have.

Most preserved railways are single line which were once branch lines,

but this is a proper main line.

Yeah, in the great days of steam railways, there were two routes up England.

one up the west coast and one up the east coast.

In 1893, the Great Central put one up the middle and in 1899,

they got from London to Leicester, and now it's the only mainline

with real steam engines.

And they have 20 here.

-Yeah, and here's the locomotive. And this is Fred the driver. Hello.

-I won't be coming with you.

-Oh, well.

-We shall look after him.

-I'll see how they're getting on with the repairs on the fire hole door.

-Right.

-I'll leave Fred with you.

-He'll be in safe hands, Alf.

-Sorry about this!

-I can see!

-Right!

-Catch you later.

We better get rolling. Bloody hell!

-A big beer belly, you'd never get though that hole!

-No!

This O4 class locomotive is one of only two surviving engines

from the original Great Central Railway.

Built in 1912, it was restored and is part of the national collection.

For Fred, riding on the footplate of a steam locomotive like this has never lost its magic.

But for Alf, there's always something to do on Fred's engine.

-How are you going on with it, Jack?

-OK.

-Hello.

-Is it working all right? Opening all right? You're happy with it?

-Yeah.

-Your next trip will be down to London to see the Queen?

-Yes.

-Are you looking forward to that?

-Yeah.

-Nervous? No?

-No.

-Is your dad nervous, do you reckon?

-Probably.

-A bit, yeah.

-He's acting differently.

-Is he?

Yeah. He's not been saying a lot, which is very unusual.

That's 'cos they'll not let him go in with his flat cap on!

-I wonder what it's like inside the Palace.

-It's very beautiful.

-I wonder if she'll be going, "Cup of tea?"

-Yep, that's it.

-I think he's letting, er, Jack have a steer round, isn't he?

-Yes and you.

Yeah, I'll let you go first, Jack.

-Thank you.

-A bit dodgy with all this traffic.

That squeaky noise reminds me of my youth.

That were bad! Cut!

-How many tonnes have we got?

-234.

Yeah, yeah.

And I reckon we didn't burn much above 500 or 600 weight, did we?

I wonder how much diesel fuel it would take to move the same weight.

How far is it from here to London?

I've no idea to be honest.

-Quite a long drive?

-Oh, aye.

It'll be a fair way from here.

See you, mate. Tara!

-Right then, Graham.

-Did you like that?

-Aye, it were all right.

-Right, we'll have a look at the engine shed.

-Right.

And this is where the engine was restored.

Can I introduce you to Fred Dibnah?

-Fred's just been out on the O4.

-OK.

-Craig's the man who rebuilt it.

Yeah, I've heard.

He's learned more about steam than anybody else here.

-That's good for a young man.

-It is.

-Yeah.

-I'll leave you to chat.

-Yeah.

-See you later.

-All right.

-Thanks.

-We just had a good run down the line.

-Right.

-On one that you done up.

-Yeah? Did you enjoy it?

-It were great.

-Well, it took me about three years to complete it.

-I bet.

-I had to strip it all down.

-Take it all totally to bits.

-What a pleasurable thing to do.

Put it all back together. What about the boiler?

Basically, a full re-tube, a few stays here and there, but apart from that it was...

-1912 it were made, weren't it?

-Yeah.

Did you have much with the bearings and that part of it?

All the bearings were replaced.

Were there owt wrong with the journals?

They were fairly smooth but we had them skimmed. To get 'em back to new.

I'm a bit worried about my tractor.

I don't know what I made the front bearings out of,

but there's a very weak solution of gold paint coming out with the oil.

-Right, yeah.

-Something's wrong.

-You've got to be careful when you're getting things out of scrap yards.

-Definitely.

-How are you doing?

-We're getting there.

-Did you get the fire hole door on?

He's done a good job, Jack has. It's perfect.

I've been having a whale of a time on all these nice engines.

I'm having a Guinness. Where's me chair? I need a sit down.

Hey, it's nice and peaceful here, innit, Rog?

-Yeah.

-It reminds me of when I used to sneak onto the railway sheds in Bolton, that have all gone now.

Yuppie houses all over it now. Yeah, when I were little.

Happy days.

And here we are, sat here, miles away from home, in Loughborough,

in a nice interesting place, hey?

-Yeah, it's lovely, innit?

-Yeah.

On a Saturday morning, I'd climb over the fence and go up this embankment.

My uncle were there with his steam engine. He'd let me get on it.

All Saturday morning, chuff, chuff, chuff.

12pm, it went back to engine shed.

So, I had to vacate - I had to get over the fence and go home for me meat pie.

-Yeah, there were a pub. You've seen it on Manchester Road - the Wagon and Horses.

-Oh, yeah.

And it had an iron ladder out of the sidings down into the back yard of the pub. And I'm not kidding.

It were as shiny as that regulator handle with the usage that it had.

All day long, railwaymen were going on duty or coming off duty,

and on a Saturday night it were chock-full - you couldn't get a pint.

On the big bridge, there'd be a black fire with 40 wagons of coal blowing its head off into sky.

Firemen in the pub were, "Just one more before we set off"!

Then they got up on the engine, blasting on the whistle and away they went!

They'd get arrested nowadays for that.

That lamp on the mantelpiece - Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, Manchester-Victoria.

This guy were a shunter, a man with a stick with a hook on the end.

He were in the pub, drunk with the hat on the back of his head.

Like Will Hay in that film Oh, Mr Porter!

I says, "What are you going to do with your lamp?" "Buy us a pint and you can have the bloody thing!"

And he give it me. Yeah, he'll be gone and all.

But I've still got the lamp, it'll be yours some day.

-The one on the mantelpiece in the parlour?

-Yeah, in the parlour.

-Yeah, yeah.

-And there's the ones above the lathe in the shed.

Hughie Winterbottom got me them for the steam roller - they were brand-new.

You can have them as well.

With the engine all polished,

time to head off for London and Fred's appointment at the palace.

I'm enjoying this trip really. It's tiring but good fun, innit?

But on the way, there's another little detour.

Well, now then, yeah.

While we're here on the edges of London,

somewhere near here there's this... The Crossness Pumping Station with four great big beam engines in

that have been here since 1860, which we should have a look at.

They're quite splendid, I think.

They're the finest Victorian cast-iron work in all London.

The Crossness engines are on the River Thames near Abbeywood in south-east London.

So, it's been quite a detour.

But he's wanted to see these engines for a long time and he knows this may be his last chance.

Mmm, here we are.

Right, disembark. Put the brake on, Roger.

All right.

Get in here Fred, have a warm!

-Cold were that.

-Well, we're here. This is it, innit?

Built in 1865, when the Thames were polluted,

and the water supplies were bad news.

Mr Joseph Bazalgette got the job

and he built 85 miles of sewers to clean up London and then, of course,

three pumping stations to help out when it started going up brew.

-This is the remains of the last one.

-The last one.

It's still got the engines in. Some of them, there's no engines.

And I believe this is the biggest pumping engine, well, the beam engine in the world, isn't it?

We'll go and have a look at it.

Come on, boys.

While Alf's fettling the engine, I'll show you these brilliant steam engines these, phwoar!

Biggest beam engines in England, or maybe even in the world, built by James Watt.

Originally, they had 12 Cornish boilers that burned 5,000 tonnes of coal every year

to make them all go, provide the steam and pump the raw sewage of London down into the Thames.

By 1920-odd it were all over with. They were derelict, finished, redundant.

And they were heavily vandalised.

People here restored it, or it would have gone.

And how can you destroy something so beautiful?

-How do you do?

-Welcome.

-We've come to see your beautiful engine.

-Lovely, isn't it?

-Well, a quarter of it. How long has it took to do this bit?

About 18 years to do this, but these are all original parts.

-All this cast-iron work's beautiful, isn't it?

-Come and have a look at the rest of the engine.

-There you see the crosshead going up and down.

-Oh aye, yeah.

Mr Watts' famous link motion.

The fascinating thing about it all

-is that crosshead coming down and stopping just that much.

-It's about five-eighths of an inch off.

-Yeah.

-I wonder when they put it up at first.

Did they have any fun - "Let's take another quarter of an inch off."

-Is this the top end of the valve gear?

-Yes. This is the inlet valve and that's the exhaust valve.

The inlet valve has this trip mechanism.

It trips the valve shut at a certain position on the stroke.

-Is it about a seven-foot stroke?

-Nine foot.

-Nine foot? Bloomin' heck!

-Shall we go up to the er...?

-Up to the beam floor.

Well, here we are Fred. There's the beam.

42 foot long and weighing all of...

-50 tonnes!

-Yeah, which is an awful lot.

It makes you wonder how they got that from Birmingham, doesn't it?

These are the counterbalance weights.

Yeah, they were put on after it had been compounded.

To compensate for the weight of the additional cylinders.

-The beam was cast in Birmingham.

-Benjamin Goodfellow, wasn't it?

-Yes.

-Not so far from where we went.

-They're no longer in business.

-Oh, no, no. They've all gone!

-But we've managed to get the drawings.

What we've tried to do is to pick up what we think was the decoration they had in those days.

Could we look at some more of the decoration?

-Where it's all very beautiful.

-Yeah.

And it drives on teeth behind the flywheel.

-Hello, Peter. Can I introduce...

-Mr Bazalgette's nephew by three.

-Joseph's great-great grandson.

-Three generations ago.

-Right.

-So...

-Can I leave you to talk?

-Thanks.

-See you later.

-Right, Fred.

Is this the smallest, biggest, compared to others you've seen?

I haven't seen one as big - the weight of the beam is 49 tonnes or nearly 50 tonnes

The others I asked about were only 30-odd tonne.

That's one up for Crossness then!

And how much good London excrement did this lift every minute in the 19th century?

A few hundred tonnes.

This one on its own would do 120 tonnes of effluent a minute.

-There's other words but you can't say that on telly.

-Family show.

What a task, hey! Cleaning up London of cholera, typhoid.

-I think I can be proud of that.

-Yeah. Well, I should be.

To me, you never cease to wonder how they had such forethought

to make everything big enough, you know.

We make things and they're only designed to last 20 year.

He'd get into trouble nowadays - spending too much on the system.

That's why it's lasted 150 years. Still doing the job it is today.

The other thing that always amazes me about these engines, is that we can almost talk in a whisper.

It's such a delicate piece of equipment. No real noise.

It's had little done in mechanical maintenance

to the main bits that would make the noise, like the main bearings.

When I were a little lad, I used to go in spinning mills.

They buzzed round at a lot more revs than this.

Some of them made a terrible row. It were the end and nobody bothered.

-Not maintained properly.

-No.

-I marvel at people volunteering to restore a bit of heritage that they love.

-Yeah.

Come on, you go around and...

I'd like to have been here on the first day,

after all that grafting, scraping thick grease, the thing actually revolved.

Unbelievable feeling.

-All the engines you've helped... Is it why you've got your visit to the Palace?

-Oh, aye.

-Well, I think so.

-I think it is. How do you feel about that?

-Yeah.

Well, a bit of a surprise, I tell you, when I got the letter,

summoning me to meet the Queen.

The letter - did it give you the reason why?

-Yeah, services to heritage and TV work.

-I'll vote for that.

-Put it there. Brilliant to have you here.

-Thank you, I've enjoyed it.

After leaving the magnificent pumping engines at Mr Bazalgette's, we're going to the centre of London

to have a look around the sights and go over a few bridges and cause general havoc with the traffic.

Come on. We4're all right.

There are still problems with the engine.

-Wait a minute.

-Let me get an hammer. Hammer!

-I can mend this when we get back to base, you know.

That's it.

The engine's going very well but there's one or two small faults like this plug.

Every time you go over a bump, it goes further down.

-I don't know how much water we've got in it.

-It's above the hole.

Hiya! Retired steeplejack, that lad. Mechanical engineers.

But driving around the centre of London is hot, thirsty work.

There are too many nice pubs along the route to drive past them all without sampling some London beer.

We'll go and have a swift half, you know.

Fetch me one over here.

-The other thing is, I've no money.

-Jack, where was that 20 quid mum gave us?

-No, that's train ticket.

-I'll see if there's any in the van.

-Brilliant.

-Money like this, you mean?

-Yeah.

-Well, we've got a tenner.

-Yeah, come on.

If anybody comes, we've stopped for a...

I'll walk about with an oil can and try and look intelligent.

-Are you nervous?

-Should I be?

The Queen, remember! Your little medal.

-Me gong. Me gold cross.

-Yeah.

This trip, what did you see that were good?

I think we smoked Tony Blair out of Big Ben!

No, we didn't.

-We gassed him.

-We've got some super coal, no.

-Have we?

-Yeah.

-What do you think, about the buildings?

-Nice.

-Yeah.

Nice to see you!

And Fred's got a very special parking place reserved.

We've been given permission to park it up at the Guards parade ground

while we go and receive our award off the Queen.

It should certainly be safe here.

We're here at last. You'd better get some clean togs on.

-I'll have a look at the engine.

-Yeah, right.

I suppose I'd better get changed. I can't see the Queen like this.

So I'll go and get me penguin suit on.

I'm really glad for Fred, you know.

It's overdue.

He really deserves it.

I'm ready now to see the Queen!

It's being looked after really good. No chance of it getting vandalised.

We left it with some soldiers.

-Are we in the right place? Right.

-Brilliant.

I never thought I'd be coming here!

-We were going to get some ladders for you!

-Well, there's still plenty of room for steeplejacks in London.

-Where I live there's nothing left.

-Do you want some repairs done?

-Enjoy your day.

-Take care, have a nice day.

-Thank you.

Who's next?

The braces I've got on at present -

the back connection is the button hole in the back pocket,

and the front are the tightening-up pieces, no belt lugs on these pants.

Yeah, well-deserved.

But I'm not so sure when he comes back whether I have to take off me hat, bow or curtsey!

I've been here before, but only ever stood outside and looked through them forbidding railings.

I never thought I'd be here.

It's quite as splendid inside as it is outside, isn't it?

Er... We'll nick a couple of these gas lamps for back at base.

-Mr Suggs, London.

-Shall I go and get your ladders?

That flagpole is three ladders high. I tell you that.

I wonder where the Queen's apartments are?

Dr Frederick Dibnah, for services to heritage and broadcasting.

She said, "You don't still climb up chimneys?"

"No, it's a young man's business!"

And then it were the handshake and bugger off, it's time to go!

Can you turn this way? Fred?

And here I am, stood in the middle of Buckingham Palace with a medal.

Fred, just hold it up a bit. Lovely.

-What was it like, meeting the Queen?

-Well, it's a bit unusual really.

I never, ever envisaged I would ever end up in Buckingham Palace getting an MBE, you know,

Nowadays, do you think as yourself as Fred Dibnah, steeplejack or Fred Dibnah, broadcaster?

-Well...

-What's your first love?

Neither, really. I'm a back street mechanic.

Aberdeen University gave me an honorary degree in back street mechanicing.

And now Birmingham University have given me one.

-So it'll do for me, that!

-And now you've been honoured by the Queen.

-Aye, I've got an MBE too!

-Congratulations. Nice to see you.

-Yeah, you're the tennis player.

-Yeah, that's right how are you?

-Yeah.

-Let's get a little bit of these in.

Many, many years ago, when I was at school, you were the first person I ever photographed.

-Thank you very much!

-Take it to the chemist and you'll get your pills.

-What did you feel when you were told you were going to get this?

-Surprised, to say the least.

Does it bother you at all that it's got this "Empire" word in it?

No, I think the Queen and the Empire is what made Great Britain great.

I'm a real royalist, mate.

I mean everything about this place is beautiful, isn't it?

It's an iron founder's dream, all of this.

And it's that love of the craftsmanship and the building and engineering skills of the past

and his passion for telling us about it that made Fred so special as a broadcaster.

But looking at these things for television wasn't without its drawbacks.

The great drawback with television presenting

is you don't get enough time to actually study the objects.

They have to come and find me because I'm off looking at things of great interest to me,

where I could have spent days not hours, like the lantern on Ely Cathedral.

Quite a magnificent piece of woodwork.

That's why we created that model that we did that were

my version of how them men got it all up there in the Middle Ages.

And then, there's the modern wonders of the world like the Forth Rail Bridge

and more modern ones, you know, the suspension bridges made of wire, which are fantastic things.

The most exciting one were the one over the M62.

I've never, ever seen anything go over that bridge.

But when you're up there, you don't know where you are.

All of a sudden, you just come to these handrails and whoo!

200 foot down!

All the people that I've met, they're like the lads who really do it for a living proper

like the steam hammer men in Sheffield.

They were like no talking, like a team, perfectly rehearsed in every move. That, to me, were brilliant.

I just like that style of workman, like boilers and riveting and all of that sort of thing.

And for Fred, it's this back street mechanicing, as he calls it,

and all that he's taught himself in this field, that is his greatest achievement.

He believes that more than anything else,

it's what he's done to preserve these skills that's earned him his engineering doctorates and his MBE.

Yeah. I don't know whether I can wear it whilst, you know, driving the engine.

I don't know. Maybe.

That's it.

A lifetime's ambition fulfilled.

Now it's time to celebrate.

And what a way to see the sights.

-Can you see the big wheel?

-The London Eye, that's called.

Yeah, all the ridge tiles on the Houses of Parliament, they're all cast iron.

There's lots of beautiful buildings in London.

-What about Big Ben then, hey?

-Good.

We've been up there, you know.

Right amongst it all, where the bell is.

-Where we going now?

-We'll go home and see what's what in the back garden, I think.

'Well, I've done it, it's finished.'