A Year with Fred - Relief, Ecstacy and Magic (part 1)
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- čas přidán 14. 02. 2022
- A Year with Fred (Relief, Ecstacy and Magic) part 1
A repeat broadcast from 1991 of the BBC2 series about Bolton Steeplejack Fred Dibnah.
Date: Thursday 5th September 1991
This is the OG reality tv. And it beats all by a long shot. RIP Fred.
The world lost a treasure when he passed away. A true craftsman
The more I watch of this man, the more incredible I think he is! JUST AMAZING!!!!
"Fred Dibner will be dropping this chimney at 11 O'clock in the morning. There's no danger." Classic. The seal of safty.🤣👍
That prat! Someone got killed! Not by Fred they didn't!
Those were the days when you got the kids involved in setting the chimney alight. What a wonderful character Fred was.
Don’t blame the kids, blame yourself for making that horrible reality possible.
You would get them today as well if the world would be still not over-regulated and the personal freedom reduced to the ability to only decide what shyte you can click on the internet.
Kids love anarchy and Fred’s work was at least a little bit of that.
What i always loved about the way Fred drops a stack is his love of the structure, love seeing the chimney smoke for the last time ,doing what it was meant to do then disappearing for ever
This takes me back. Lovely people full of good humour. Fred was a star. No high vis jackets, hard hats. Bloody, bugger this and that. Brilliant
Don't think a high viz or hard hat would do much if a 100 ft chimney fell on your head 😅
@@milo04 be easier to find the body though
"Have you ever seen one jump backwards"......classic Fred. ♥️
This chimney belonged to Park Mill off Moorfield Rd Hollinwood near Oldham it was owned by Smith & Nephew for manufacturing baby garments until it closed in 1982 it literally stood 30 feet behind the block of houses on the right some of the mill had to be demolished using scaffolding around the perimeter because it was adjacent to the houses on the left.
The chimney the pensioner refers to that killed somebody when it came down was the Glebe Mill on Drury Lane but this was an unfortunate incident due to the stack collapsing not a demolition job. It did kill a young lady worker and injured three others when it crashed into the lodge and damaged houses around it but this was in the 1930s not a recent incident.
Total legend is Fred, no safety equipment for any part of the job just gets it done. The Empire was built on men like Fred.
Built on the bodies of men like Fred you mean.
This man has amazed me since I first saw him at work a long time ago. He is a true fearless man. Tall structures must be built, and they must come down eventually and this man holds both ends. Love me some Fred, what a great man !
A fella had six pints on his lunch and then demolished a 400ft chimney 30 ft away from a street of houses and the council told the residents there was absolutely no danger to their houses but the police evacuated them just in case it all went tits up and the residents said they had heard of a woman who had died in one of these demolitions but they would have preferred to stay to watch anyway. The era of my childhood.
Setting a fire by burning old tyres. 🤣
Fucking love that you said tits up lol I thought I was the only one
Apparently they didn’t have punctuation in your day, either.
This was the era i grew up in. Nothing was of limits as a kid. Some of the crazy things we got up to. My kids are so envious of the way we used to live.
In many countries in the eastern hemispere today is the same
Pretty much my favorite show in the world. Tire burning madman! Awesome!
Imagine the costs involved with doing this today. Would take 6 months of planning, 3 rounds of quotes and £2 million between consultation, site access, insurance, demolition and cleanup. That's before cheaply subcontracting a bunch of clowns to do the job and fuck it up.
Exactly. Back then they just got on with the job and no faffing about, yet when the place is cleared it doesn't take em long for the developers to move on site building a dozen "luxury" hamster cage sized apartments.
"Men of timid heart" as said by the legend himself
The cost in high viz clothing and tin hats would be more now than the job in its entirety back theb
Love this man, went 200 foot into the air on a ladder just to get his work day started. When a person is born with unlimited courage and most likely a massive intelligence it can get interesting and complicated.
Fantastic comment! Thank you.
wife beater
And he used to climb down for his lunch...and go back up.... top bloke
And after all that life of hard work....your wife takes off after having children, and, getting married.. ohhh you got money now...I'm taking you to the cleaners, claim child support, and, going to holiday in a foreign country...soooo so sad what that country has reduced itself too.
Gives me the chills just watching him on video. Imagine being his workmate!!
What a character Fred was funny down to earth salt of the earth truly missed a true gentleman and hardworking man
Thanks for uploading. What a contrast from the older episodes hearing him discuss insurance.
Just came across an article in the Liverpool Echo newspaper from 25th July 1988 which read:
"Year's ban for driver Fred"
It goes on to say:
"TV STEEPLEJACK Fred Dibnah was banned from driving today after a court heard he celebrated the demolition of a building "a little too well.
The 12 months ban means Dibnah, whose passion includes restoring antique steam engines, will not be able to exhibit his famous steam roller. The cloth-capped steeplejack who shot to TV fame, was twice the legal drink/driving limit when stopped for speeding after a trip to Liverpool. Dibnah, 50 of Radcliffe Road, Bolton, admitted driving his Land-Rover over the alcohol limit and driving at more than 30mph in the town's Manchester Road on June 23 1988."
That's the first I have about that. I bet alot of people don't remember this, strange that there was never any mention of this driving incident in this series or any of the Fred Dibnah series I've seen. Seems like that the story has been buried.
I think..back then times were different, and much more chilled..
Wouldn't you agree?
Just imagine Fred on Ecstacy. That would have been some night out raving!
It's staggering to me, as someone who's been in demolition since the late 80s how much safety has changed!
To see that kids and random strangers were allowed right up to a half propped chimney makes me really nostalgic and sad for how much "staying safe" now dominates our lives and culture.
I agree. "Staying safe" has been pushed more and more with "Covid", if you believe that which I don't. To me it shows safety is more about control than keeping us safe. I watch old footage like that and notice how much freedom kids had back then, the freedom to wonder and explore, but as long as you're sensible and don't act stupid then I don't see a problem with scenes like that, but like I said I believe the health and safety thing is about control. Companies love accidents as it's good for insurance, and insurance companies wouldn't make any money from claims and court cases.
@@Embracing01 I also agree, yes it's about control.
@@Embracing01 Totally agree but I will add it goes MUCH deeper how the control is implemented. Long story short is that one race of people, wish to neuter, reprogram and depopulate their main competition.............White European people. The two wars were partly about achieving this goal and others, and successfully removed many of the best men and women from the population. Covid was never about a "virus" but was a means to an end, e.g. the trigger to cause the destruction of the key mechanisms that make society work, raise it all to the ground and then put the next control system in place this time using technology, including bio-tech. They need a more docile population for what is coming.
@@sliperysid back in dayd there are bad accidents happening and no one cares about the death workers, there got forget.
@@borntoclimb7116 oh right. Thanks for your input... it's definitely changed my opinion.
Brilliant getting the local kids to help. They'll remember that all their lives. :D
How good is it that the method they use means the chimney gets to smoke one last time on its way out. It must have been quite a sight living amongst these things when they were in there heyday.
I'm surprised he could run so fast carrying those giant steel balls in his underpants!!!!
Watched Mr. Dibnah for decades but this is the first time I've felt 'emotional' for the chimney!
Watching the smoke of the burning tyres bellow out of it (a last hurrah) is simply a symbolic act of transition.
Respect to all those who built the chimney, utilised the chimney, watched the chimney's demise.
RIP the UK industrial revolution
Idk, but Guy Martin might want to take a DNA test with this bloke.
Haha deffo share some ancestry
Ha haa yeah!!
Scary how fearless this man was.
specially when he were beating his wife............. totally fearless. c u next time
@@raymondo162 Didn't know he was a wife beater pissed claiming all them chimneys I no that. Watched him claiming up a big one in Manchester town center about 40 years ago when I was in the adjacent car scrap yard getting a part.
@@raymondo162 evidence?
Yank here from the dusty SW....no old block chimneys really. I'm just gobsmacked!! I was in the tyre biz for years. Got me a bit misty watching. Ya either know how to work or ya don't. Mr. Dibnah falls square in the former. Hats off.....
It's so depressing seeing how far we have regressed. Sure life is easier but quality of life is not. People didn't need much to be happy in those days.
Nostalgic talk is like drunk people making promises, rarely true
@@WadaZable I've spoken to enough people who lived through this era to know it's true.
@@tropicalpalmtree I guess you only speak to people your age
I take your point however, to be honest I grew up in the 60's and 70's and it was awful!
Fred was my hero....Great uploads
he were a feckin wife beater
Beautiful cinematography. Godspeed you wacky Prince.
The Legend!!!!
Great upload 👍
I notice how, at the beginning, he keeps looking up at the falling stack to see the direction, rather than running blind
Most fearless man I've ever seen
Started work early 70,s in steelworks ..not much safety but you soon learned how to keep yourself safe...great times...!!....country,s gone to pot no industry no real jobs...feel sorry for the youngsters of today ...
-Fred, are you using any safety ropes?
-Yes, I tied my shoes well!
Definitely missed. Rest in peace fred 🌹
Fred's car story is brilliant , haha !!
I dont know why, but i keep find myself watching this!
This guy goes door to door to informed neighbourhood about the Fred,s work and demolition of Chimney..no 1000 emails no Machinery and labors around..life was so simple befor..
If poor Fred see the youth today he would be disappointed
Very disappointed
@@RJ1999x very very disappointed
Well said, that's a fact
Very very very disappointed (etc)
Too bloody right
Good old days gone for good now 😢😢😢😢😢😢😢
Theres a video of him dropping "DartmillTower" which is truely a sight to see.Many stories tall with a central stairwell to deal with aswell.Incredible using the same technique but far more complex.
Im on that video! Lived on Tonge Moor Road more or less facing Union Road...went down with my dad. Great days.
@@johnathanryan2117 I have watched that video more times than you shake a stick at.That was some serious engineered work.So I am a bit jealous that you actually saw it drop.That central stairwell on the slow motion actually took a second or two to fail and the lot went.Thanks for your comment.I would have loved to have seen it for real.
@@glennpowell3444 i was only young Glenn, dont remember much of it other than a big local build up and being there a long time before anything actually happened. Intetestingly, around the same era and perhaps a couple of years prior, the cooling chimneys at Back o'th Bank power statiin, only a few hundred yards from Dart, were knocked down too and we saw that. Think the works git its own folk to do that though on dynamite from memory.
Youre right about Dart. The staircase mustve took some building, Fred wrestles with the logistics of the staircase in the video you refer too and i think he concludes that the props must be a bit longer 18 inches or so, if he does a job like it again.
Those mills had a great history. Denvale Mill, next door to Dart and gone by the time the video was made, was used in a film starring Gracie Fields when she leads workers out of the gates to a song she's singing. Not sure of the film title. A prefab estate went up there in the fifties too, still has notoriety now as the " Denvale Estate" and was a byword for poverty, happily replaced in the 70s by a new estate of real houses although these now are " of the time."
The area of the mills is now given over to light industry in aluminium sheds...everything Fred despised.
At its zenith, Bolton had 216 mills, making it one of the most important and productive cotton centres in the world, and the worlds biggest cotton town as a " fine" spinning ( intricate and difficult to do work) as well as the world centre for dyeing and finishing, the two go hand in hand.
Nothing left of it now at all, amazing considering i have some Bolton Wanderers football programmes in which school leavers are encouraged to go into the trade as late as the early 70s.
Fred lived through it too. Top man, exponent of a life long gone but not that long ago. Plenty of Fred Dibnah types about until about 30 years ago.
@@johnathanryan2117 Good stuff.Although from the black country where the plenty of stacks its the northern mill chimneys that amazed me.Listers and Darwen India Mills I think are both standing.I did watch walsall power station main stack and cooling towers dropped in the 80,s with my dad but they were blown with tnt.The Dartmill tower however will always be of interest to me.Pit props that were bending under the weight under that stairwell.Dibnah said he used 18"" gaps but next job he would go to 2 foot 6 as he was alarmed how the props started failing and the gap closed up before it came down.Would love to have done that job.As for climbing the big stacks and laddering them and putting the staging up......I dont mind heights and have the skill but god only knows how steeplejacks get the bottle from. I could not even in my fearless younger days done that.I watch still in awe at the likes of Dibnah.About three years ago a jack fell off a 300 footer who worked for Baileys from macclesfield.As for football I will always be on a northern side or obviously midland side than any bloody southern club.
@@glennpowell3444 totally agree. The people who did the Walsall onrs probably did the Bolton ones too. We have some mills still standing but most are gone. If there is a remaining example similair to Dart staircase i"ll let you know.
Youre right about the prop measurement, knew he'd mentioned 18 inch!
You wouldnt get me up one of them bloody things and i was in the building trade...special sort of bottle that.
Rum lad was Fred, " can do" attitude got him far. Sadly missed round our way.
Back when men were wolves and the sheep were nervous😎✊🏻
'Men of timid heart' 🤣
If this was in 2022 all the kids on that street would need therapy for a year because of the trauma of a falling chimney
It would some how be considered offensive and fred would have been cancelled
Fred is and absolute ledge of a man ! What a bloke 💪
He's standing around the collapsing tower, dodging back and forth to remain clear.
Before the days of carbon footprints and health and safety... Good times....
I agree, but people don't realise when they say carbon footprint they are meaning people. So when they say they want to reduce the carbon footprint they want to reduce the population, because we are carbon essentially. I think health and safety is about control, there are exceptions of course but it has become ridiculous in many places, even where you aren't allowed to fix the clock in the staff canteen in case you may fall off a ladder lol.
-Fred, are you using any safety ropes?
-Yes, I tied my shoes well!
There's a tire fire that's been going on for decades in kuwait
Sure... now are the wonderful times of heat waves and climate changes and pandemics... all caused by human greed and thoughtlessness.
Health and safety Fred, yea I’ve had a few pints, what a legend
Thats are nice old chimneys, in germany we have lots of old chimneys to but the big ones fascenating me, 200 meter, 250 and 300 meters, love it to climb it and i thing on fred.
Love that story of him flattening the car!
Absolute legend
Loved Fred don't get me wrong but I still feel his first wife got a raw deal out of it all!
All's fair in love and war
he were a feckin wife beater
She be the first woman to geta raw deal from divorce lol
And rightly so.
I surmise he was the exact same man on the day she married him to the day she left him. Right or wrong she decided it was best to move on and I certainly don't blame her for that.
Still a legend
" I got a lil black book with me poems in" 😝👌, cheerio ✌️
That man is a legend
and................ he were a feckin wife beater too
Wow how times have changed..
The days you could call a man..a man without misgendering and being sent to prison 👍
..awesome vid.
☺️👌🏻......and here we are in amazing 2022....😐😏
proper legend
he were a proper feckin wife beater
I like the team working
What a legend
And Not One cared enough to keep his workshop as a working (apprenticeship?) museum!
Not a hard hat or Steele toecap in sight. The days when the world wasn’t mad!
Or those bloody hi viz jackets that I am sick to death of seeing. I walked past a local primary school today and the kids were playing sports on the field and even the teacher or school attendant was wearing a green viz jacket. Even the bloke dropping off a parcel at your door wears one, what the hell for? it's getting ridiculous. Personally I think this is all about conformity and giving people the impression that those wearing them have some kind of police or authoritarian power over the public, that's why you have security and guards at stations and other public places wearing them when there's no need for one, because people automatically think they are police who can stop them and ask for their ID.
@@Embracing01
Remember when I worked in this factory, I approached some one on a forktruck and this bloody supervisor said that's a sackable offence cause I didn't put I viz on, I said well sack me, another he was stationed and if he hit question is, should he be on it if he couldn't Fcking see me. I just walked off. He never said ote again lol. Bloody madness what this Country as become
@@paulvickers3800 It's all about control, compliancy and conformity. They don't care or even realise the rules don't make any sense, it's all about doing as you are told, basically be a workslave.
Yes, because we should just expect to die at work.
Most procedures are reactionary after people have been killed or injured.
Imagine getting all bothered by protective clothing. What a simpleton.
@@paulvickers3800 wow, got any other great stories?
"Them men have got carpets a foot thick and Mark 10 Jags you know. I ain't fair you know"...
Alas, them men run the world today.
Oy vey!
The man the legend, man of wisdom
The good old days! "Fred's dropping a chimney Sunday at 11, you'll need to fuck off for a bit. It's all good though...don't worry. Eh? Drury lane? That weren't our job, nah this one will be fine I reckon. And anyway he got a couple of kids helping him with the kango hammer as we speak so chop chop, get a shift on."
Imagine trying to do that now with HSE lol
What a Master! Although it never touched a house, would the weight of that chimney smacking the floor cause any foundation problems?
Good question. To my knowledge its usually continuous vibration from construction nearby that can cause issues rather than one big whack, but im not certain.
Absoloute legend .
IN THE DAYS OF STRICT HEALTH AND SAFETY
I liked that ....
Anybody know the intro-theme?
Yes I hear there was a problem on the corner of Drury lane, the muffin man's bakery was crushed....
91! Looks like '81 in Bolton.
Rang Fred up on a Friday night when his number was in the yellow pages ,he was very nice ,but told me to never ring him while he was having his tea again ..his number was in the greater Manchester yellow pages f dibna and sons steeple jack…absolute top bloke..😂
Legend
them cars are my dreams
...📺 we sadly live in a time of narcissistic celebrity love Islanders,two bickering Geordie irritants,pretentious chefs and yet more mediocrity for the masses.
God i miss Fred Dibnah 🛠
Indeed
he were a feckin wife beater
Couldn't of put it better mate.the two geordie irritants are the worst.....
Yup, but check our travels by narrowboat..Fred would approve ;)
All those neighborhood kids helping with the fire
all them tyres hes burning good old 80s
lol no danger ---- but you have to leave your house !
'them men have carpets a foot thick' I never knew a man's wealth was based on how thick his carpets are.
Wayyy back in the day carpet used to be quite expensive. That's why it's common to see old people with carpeted everything, sometimes even bathrooms.
Good old Fred: smoked like a chimney.
Not a High Viz in sight 😂
I agree, can't stand the sight of hi viz jackets. I've even seen school kids wearing them on trips out, none of that crap when I was at school in the 80s and 90s. Alot of people who wear them power and authority has gone to the heads and they think they're Hitler.
Love the old health and safety, chap on the door if no one answers they're not in.
Today the bloke would be wearing a hi viz jacket with some stupid body camera attached to his jacket and a clipper board with some stupid check list and an intimidating attitude, and if noone answers they would probably have to force entry to the house, which would be unlawful, plus he would be attended by half the police and paramedics.
12:52 looks like that’s the smoke signal to come watch the show.
I heard behind the scenes he was a monster
That's a crazy why to take down a smokestack//chimney. But it is such a touching tribute... to let 'er blow off some smoke one final time in her last moments 🥺🥺
He is kinda example why people in Amerika have certain accent
There was one on drury lane lol it killed a gingerbread man.
Gingerbread man 🤣😂😅
8:45 can’t do that anymore….
The home owner who disputed the lack of risk wasn't taken seriously.
Love it, Fred reminds me of me
Love the honk honk that nobody can hear. 🤣🤣
Real tough bro no way I could climb up a chimney overhang let alone try
Can't run a country teaching boys to bake cakes .. fred
Did you like that
Does anyone think there should be a film made about Fred Dibnah?. Imagine the storyline, would go into Fred's childhood and fascination with steam and engineering and the industrial revolution, his days becoming a steeplejack, his marriages etc. I wonder who would play the part? Peter Kay? lol.
Not enough smoke,give me a cigarette, good old Fred.
i love the smell of asbestos in the morning