Fred Dibnah: master chimney demolisher and coal-mine enthusiast
One of the best things about being an immigrant is that there's an entire nation's worth of wonderful and weird pop-culture to absorb. Case in point: last night, my dinner guests told me about the notorious Fred Dibnah, a British steeplejack who made a career out of televised, dramatic demolitions of giant industrial chimneys, a feat he accomplished without explosions. Dibnah also owned a pair of lovingly restored steam engines, and dug a replica coal mine in his back yard. There's a wealth of Dibnah videos on YouTube -- they're endlessly entertaining.
Having mastered his trade repairing chimneys, Dibnah became aware of the demand for a cost-effective demolition method and offered to remove them without the need for explosives. His technique was to cut an ingress at the bottom of the chimney, support the brickwork with wooden props and then burn the props so that the chimney fell, hopefully in the intended direction. Alongside his demolition work he also continued to work as a steeplejack. He has always maintained that, although most famous for demolishing chimneys, he much preferred to repair and preserve them.Link to Fred Dibnah's Wikipedia entry, Link to Fred Dibnah videos on YouTube (Thanks, Ben!)
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Fred was a national treasure. A few years ago I visited the Wildlife Park in the Isle of Man, and took the kids on the wonderful miniature railway there.
Fred was there talking to the engineers, and despite the fact that he was clearly on holiday, and there was not a TV camera in sight, he was still obsessing over the railway, dressed in his trademark overalls and flat cap.
Having said that, for a railway enthusiast to be found in the Isle of Man is not that unusual: the Island possesses vintage electric, horse-drawn and steam railways (and used to have a cable car system, a-la-San Francisco).
For a rotund, bespectacled chap with an overweening fondness for steam trains, he also had quite a way with the ladies & went through several wives. It's worth seeking out any episodes which showcase his workshop, which is like a mini-factory in a large, ramshacle shed powered entirely by steam.
If you manage to see any of the later episodes, they're often intermingled with beautiful hand-drawn architectural drawings (or interpretations) of the buildings he was investigating. I only learned after he passed away that those were all done by himself as well. He was a master draughtsman by training, steeplejack by trade and enthusiast (of may things) by nature.
Fred was indeed a "national treasure" and he "burnt down chimneys" there was another renowned chimney demolisher and character, Blaster Bates. His story is that he was on Telly once, but disgraced him self on the BBC by being a bit worse for wear and swearing. His recordings of stories about explosives and adventures in trying to solve all sorts of problems with a loud bang are hilarious, though peppered with bad language and broad Cheshire dialect. Well worth looking up. He was the sort of person now very much frowned upon by the health and safety crowd.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaster_Bates
Fred rocked.
I'm from the same town as him, and he demolished an old textile factory near my house. He looked like an overgrown child, getting overexcited and hyper, and to the layman his methods looked haphazard.
The chimneys always fell perfectly though :)
As others have said, Fred was a national treasure.
He wasn't perfect of course (but none of us are) the way he ignored his daughters was unfortunate.
"To th' pub!"
Love the way all the smoke went up and out of the chimney, as if for old times' sake...
I'd love a few of those bricks for my garden, I know that!
You don't find people in a niche like that gentleman was very often.
Great post and a cool video.
Side note:
Why is it that people don't look back so fondly on all the health problems that those chimneys contributed to from that era?
Call me the ugly American, but all they seem to remind me of is the cover of "Animals" by Pink Floyd and the content therein.
Fred was one of my absolute heroes, a fantastic engineer and an all round lovely guy. Makes you glad that there are (were) people like him in the world.
Makes me proud to be English -> British...
"Dramatic" demolitions? No, not really. He did use the fire at the bottom method as opposed to dynamite, but his real preference was to sit at the top and knock it down brick by brick, throwing the debris down the chimney and out of a chute through a hole built at the bottom.
Of course, this method could take weeks or months. But it's scarcely dramatic.
What I want to know is - whatever happened to Donald?
sure enough guvnor! I'll be having yer chimney down in two shakes or me name ain't Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibnah!" (fancy an otter's nose while you wait? Sausage-inna-bun?)
On the topic of chimney demolishing: I once had an article published in Fine Homebuilding on how not to demolish a chimney.
...learned the hard way.
Wow. In the States, they'd have cordoned off 1/2 mile in every direction and had more safety equipment than construction workers. I'm amazed at how close they stand at the structure being felled. That's a man's man.
On the topic of falling chimneys, there's an interesting physics explanation of why large chimneys break in two when falling.
There are at least two mechanisms. Some researchers have built lego brick chimneys to use as a model.
Here's a link with all the equations and explanations http://myweb.lmu.edu/gvarieschi/chimney/chimney.html
I always look forward to the reruns of his shows on the telly, he was a pure sheddie.
We know his personal life was not perfect
but when the Dibnah put his overalls on and got his hands dirty, he was pure Britain
fascinating explanation, Nanoquimico
I've never been one for mechanical engineering -- I'm definitely a child of the digital age. Fred Dibnah made me wish I wasn't. In his shows, he had a gift for sharing his enthusiasm for the older stuff.
Thanks for bringing him to mind again.
I met Fred a few years back now when he came to climb ona of the last chimneys in the area. He was incredibly likeable, and would just wander around talking to anyone who felt like chatting to him, and he signed his autograph for me - breathtakingly perfect copperplate handwriting.
He then proceeeded to lash a ladder to the base of the chimney, slung another one on his shoulder and started to climb, lashing the 2nd ladder to the top of the first one, and so on - taking ladder after ladder up the chimney with him one at a time, no safety ropes, no harnesses. When he got to the top of the chimney, he climbed on to the rim, stood up and walked a few 'laps' of the top, surveying the landscape as he did. Gave me the complete willies just watching him.