Frederick Travis Dibnah, MBE was an English steeplejack and television personality, with a keen interest in mechanical engineering, who described himself as a “backstreet mechanic”.
When Fred Dibnah was born, Britain depended heavily on coal to fuel its industry. As a child, he was fascinated by the steam engines that powered many of the textile mills in Bolton, but he was particularly interested in the chimneys and the men who worked there.
He began his professional life as a carpenter, before becoming a steeple. From the age of 22, he served two years in the Army Service Corps of the British Army, performing national service.
After decommissioning, he returned to the bell tower but with no limited success until asked to repair the bell tower of Bolton Parish Church. Publicizing the results has given his business a boost, ensuring that he will never find himself unemployed.
In 1978, while working on repairs to Bolton Town Hall, Fred Dibnah was filmed by a BBC regional news team. The BBC then made a documentary that followed the gruff Steplejack as he worked the chimney, socializing with his family and talking about his favorite pastime: saunas.
His tall, lean demeanor and gentle, self-taught philosophical views were well-liked by audiences and he appeared in several television shows. Towards the end of his life, the decline of British industry led to the decline of his bell tower business, and Fred Dibnah increasingly relied on public appearances and after-dinner speeches to meet his needs.
In 1998, he presented a program on British industrial history and later presented several series of programmes, largely devoted to the Industrial Revolution and its mechanical and architectural heritage.
Fred Dibnah is the son of Frank and Betsy Dibnah, both of whom originally worked at a bleaching factory. His mother later worked as a cleaner at a gas plant. Named after his uncle Frederick, he was born on 28 April 1938 and grew up in the historic town of Bolton, Lancashire, then a predominantly industrial town with a history of spinning and weaving cotton.
As a child, Fred Dibnah was fascinated by the sights and sounds of industry as well as the dozens of chimneys that can be seen around Burnden Park, and was especially noted for the bell towers he saw on the way to school.
A popular pastime of local children is playing around the many factories (industrial ponds) that once dotted the area. A creative kid, Fred Dibnah and a few friends built a makeshift wetsuit out of an old box, a car tube, and some hoses. After being ordered to remove it from local pools, they tested it at one of the motels without success.
The Bolton arm of the Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal is one of Fred Dibnah’s frequent haunts. The canal was then largely unused (Bolton’s arm was largely closed by 1924), and Fred Dibnah sometimes dredged it with a clincher on a rope, for what he called “robbers” peel”.
Many of these items are stored in his mother’s backyard. Fred Dibnah and his friend Alan Heap built a canoe out of old bicycle wheels (cut in half for ribs), slate and canvas slats pulled from the back of a truck. To his mother’s dismay, Fred Dibnah rowed along the nearby Croal River. He once surprised his teachers when, after the school key was stolen, he cut a new key for each classroom door.
At the age of 22, Fred Dibnah was drafted into the army to fulfill his national service and get a job in the kitchen. He spent six weeks training at Aldershot, before being sent to Catterick to learn the basics of military catering. He was then assigned to the 14/20th King’s Hussars team and sent to West Germany. There, he persuaded his commanding officer to let him repair the house on the regiment’s farm (used as a stable for horses and dogs) and he soon secured a more permanent position as builder and assistant.
Upon returning from national service in 1962, Fred Dibnah took his tools from storage, bought a 1927 AJS 350cc motorcycle for 21 guineas, and looked for more work. However, Bolton is in the midst of a post-industrial recession; From 1957 to 1965, about 70 factories were closed in the city, leaving only 37 operating factories and about 50 factories no longer in operation.
Having mastered the work of repairing chimneys, Fred Dibnah recognized the need for a cost-effective method of destroying them. He suggested getting rid of them without the use of explosives, by digging a hole in the base of the chimney (supporting the masonry with wooden pillars), and then burning the supports in the hope that the chimney would fall in the direction it was intended to be.
Although this is a proven method, it is not without its competitors. On one occasion, the local council hired him to knock down two chimneys. The contract required him to disassemble each one by hand, but he decided to take them down by cutting the base. The first chimney collapsed as expected, but the city government terminated the contract and refused to pay.
Fred Dibnah’s interest in steam power stems from his childhood observations of steam locomotives on a nearby railroad and visits to his father’s workplace a bleaching plant in Bolton where he was fascinated by the steam engine used to run the line.
He later became a steam enthusiast, befriending many engine drivers and firefighters who worked on the nearby railroad. As a teenager, he met a furnace man who invited him to the locomotive’s footrest and asked him to continue burning fuel for the boiler. Fred Dibnah was so enamored with steam engines that he eventually bought one.
In 1978 Fred Dibnah was commissioned to repair Bolton City Hall. Decades of exposure to soot and rain had severely damaged the clock tower, and Fred Dibnah alerted the construction manager to the condition of the 16 stone pillars atop the tower. He buys new stone, builds a lathe in his workshop, and makes replacement pillars. He was tasked with repairing the clock tower, and he also gilded the golden orb on the top of the building.
His warm and friendly manner, combined with his enthusiasm and broad Lancashire accent, became well known and he was subsequently contacted by producer Don Haworth for the purpose of making a feature film. After several meetings spanning several weeks, filming began early one morning as Fred Dibnah climbed to the top of the 75m-high chimneys in Shaw and Crompton, an industrial town near Oldham.
Fred Dibnah, Steeplejack won the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1979 and over the years Haworth returned to act in more documentaries. However, his newfound popularity kept him away from his work. Visitors come to his house to see his garden. He started getting fan mail; an individual wrote a letter offering to give Fred Dibnah a steam engine that he no longer wanted.
In 1997, he met author David Hall. Hall grew up in the Bradford area of Manchester and the two exchanged stories of their childhood in the second half of the 20th century. Hall suggested that Fred Dibnah was unlikely to be offered the next television job in his life and he should consider becoming a TV presenter.
In 1967, after disagreements over who would attend their wedding, Fred Dibnah and 19-year-old hairstylist Alison Mary Foster eloped to Gretna Green to get married. On May 19, they got married at Gretna Green Church and returned to live with Dibnah’s mother. They then moved into a Victorian gated cottage on the Earl of Bradford’s estate, just outside Bolton. They had their first child, a daughter named Jayne.
Fred Dibnah met his second wife Susan Lorenz, a 28-year-old social worker, at a steam rally in Cheshire. She moved into Dibnah’s home in Bolton and the two were married on 27 February 1987. She encouraged him to grow a mustache and quit smoking. Their first son, Jack (named after his father’s profession), was born in 1987. Fred Dibnah offered to make a wind vane, on the condition that his son be baptized in the same house. His second son, Roger, was born in 1991.
In 1997, Fred Dibnah lived alone, with few jobs and little money. However, he met Sheila Grundy, a former assistant magician. She and her son moved in with Dibnah in 1998 and they got married on September 26 of the same year. At their wedding reception in Bolton, Fred Dibnah was surprised and in tears when his youngest daughter Caroline came to see him. Dibnah has had little contact with his daughters since his divorce from Alison.
Dibnah died on 6 November 2004, after suffering from cancer for three years at the age of 66.
What Is The Relationship Status Of Fred Dibnah?
As at the time of his death, Fred Dibnah was married to Sheila Grundy. In 1997, Fred Dibnah lived alone, with few jobs and little money. However, he met Sheila Grundy, a former assistant magician. She and her son moved in with Dibnah in 1998 and they got married on September 26 of the same year.
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