Get Your Facts Right Harty!

Fred Dibnah - Russell Harty show 1979



This is taken from Russell Harty's ITV chat show, after looking at the year this took place, "Russell Harty Plus" (1973-1981), before moving to the BBC, the stint he was more well known for, Grace Jones et all. He is interviewing the colourful character which was Fred Dibnah, not an entertainer, but had the erstwhile job of being a "steeplejack". This was a traditional job repairing and most famously, demolishing steeples and chimneys such as factory and church steeples. He would be required to climb these tall structures with rope or ladders before going onto the next stage of scaffolding.

Fred Dibnah's work was captured on film in 1978 in a documentary called "Fred Dibnah, Steeplejack", and much like reality TV, the very likeable and passionate Lancastrian became a celebrity on TV appearing on various shows, as well as his own TV series in his later years. 1998's "Fred Dibnah's Industrial Age". In this Youtube clip, one of his most famous scenes from the original programme, the felling of a factory/mill chimny in Rochdale, showing Dibnah dashing away from his handiwork, in this spectacular felling, and you're wondering "has he run in the right direction away from the chimney?".