Fred Dibnah
If ever there was a man who lived up to the tag ‘eccentric’, it was Fred Dibnah, the flat cap wearing steeplejack who found a place in the nation’s hearts as a most unlikely TV personality.
Fred, who has been celebrated with a statue in his home town of Bolton, first appeared on TV in 1979 as part of the local news, hanging off the side of Bolton Town Hall, fixing the clock. Read the rest of this entry »
FRED DIBNAH was the Bolton steeplejack whose no-nonsense love of his work, on-screen charisma and infectious enthusiasm for Britain’s heritage made him a television celebrity and one of the city’s favourite sons.
His commitment to preserving and documenting Britain’s industrial age, great architecture and machinery – especially steam engines – cost him two marriages and may have shortened his life. Having already outlived the 12-month diagnosis he had been given three years before, Dibnah refused chemotherapy for his prostate cancer in order to tour the country aboard his 1912 traction engine for a new 12-part series for BBC Two. He had to abandon this in September and return home to Bolton. Read the rest of this entry »
FRED Dibnah, Bolton’s celebrity steeplejack who died on Saturday, was a bluff, no nonsense man, who despite being terminally ill with cancer battled on to the end.
He died, surrounded by his family and friends, just weeks after completing his final TV series made as he toured the country on his beloved steam traction engine.
A steeplejack from Bolton, Fred Dibnah, who has died aged 66, became an unlikely television celebrity and was the star of 20 documentaries.
His first appearance, on a local news programme in the north west of England, led to his “discovery” in 1979, as he hung 240 feet up in the air, repairing Bolton’s town hall clock. Read the rest of this entry »
