Im so glad someone had the foresight to film these for future generations. I often think of what we could have witnessed if film was invented 150 year earlier.
So many techniques used and tricks known will have been lost to time throughout the history of engineering and construction. We have relied on machines for centuries, and have done away with almost all manual labour, therefore losing our understanding for it.
I love Fred Dibnah. He was one of my television heroes growing up. I was born in 1963 and im now 60. When i see all theses young lads running about having fun it reminds me of how i grew up. Those were far better times. I still love watching his programme repeats on TV.
Had a 100% record for climbing up them and bringing them down, what a man and his knowledge of all things engineering was a thing to behold. R I P Fred, we'll never see your like again.
Funny you say that. About 20+ years ago I worked with an old pipe fitter in the US named Jack. He reminds me of Fred. He was in his 60s and worked as hard or even harder than us at 30ish. On his weekends he would drive his motor cycle 600 miles each way with his wife on the back just for a ride and one night stay. He was a real throwback. I am 52 and an electrician. I look back on the things I did and wonder how I am still alive. Playing with 2000 amps 480 volt panels live, making up live 1200 amp 480 volt cables live in boxes. Shocks happened every day more than once. I would show my wife the black and blues and burns I got. Set my shirts on fire a few times. Now It is all hard hats, lock out tag out, eye protection, ear protection etc. We shot pins with a .22 into 1/2 inch steel. I just turned my head so it would not hit me in the face. Strange how much things have changed.
@@StanSwan Yeah, thank god. All very well not bothering with PPE and working on live stuff to save a few mins. At least we’re all safe now. We’ve been saved from ourselves 😅
@@2Sorts lol lots of accidents happening in the past, there is way more Dangerous stuff than fred dibnah work, look all the deaths during the work with big machines in factorys, deaths during work with acid or flambable fluids.
Absolutely brilliant. No health and safety. Brings a building down with a box of matches, almost gets hit by the building and has to run away as it collapses, then the locals from the council estate go and play on the still burning rubble, melting rubber, asbestos still very much filling the air they breath. Fred lights a cig and is off to the pub dressed in his work clothes - a shirt and cardigan.
Fred is the sort of person from Britain that established America Canada , Australia , New Zealand , and built their past industries , a true working class genuine working man , the salt of the earth which are sorely missing today .
@@mjstecyk Thier not racists..we Brits built nothing .it was already there . look into it...the paracites know this ..these two either know oi are useful idiots..
In the 70s there weren't many working class heroes that the working man could look up to on the TV, this man broke down the social barriers "class system that dominated the TV in the 60s and 70s" , Fred dibnah is a national treasure and an inspiration to us all that had the pleasure to watch him over the years!
Good times back then , when I was a teen i lived in Oldham and watched Fred demolish a mill chimney using this method of propping and burning , he was a true working class hero......RIP Fred
This is a real working man who didn’t have paper qualifications but was a superb steeplejack and a multi skilled, self taught engineer! Nowadays, young folk come out of college and know bugger all!
His previous job didnt go to plan as he stated. Theres a reason you get special degrees in these type of jobs, you could easily die from 1 simple mistake. Other than that I do admire this man every very very much!!! But the amount of deaths that have been prevented from these jobs is huge, every single life saved is a blessing. Not a single soul deserves to go to work and never return home, so I am in favour of these rules.
Sure it happening in my countrie Germany, no joke if a tall radio tower got demolished and the autoritys givve the permission, the folk kann watch the site, this is a long Tradition here even today.
I can remember watching these programs when I was growing up. Fred never ceased to amaze me. You will never find another like him, he was a one off... 👍
A fearless genius who i watched on tv when i was young. A master at what he did and a great enthusiast of steam power and the old hardworkiing industrial days in the UK. From climbing isolated industrial chimneys hundreds of feet high, repairing church spires and demolishing tall structures ...... a true insperation.
Ah the good old days when kids could take part in exciting events and learn something with physical activity. Stacking tires, exploring around a dilapidated building, starting a fire, breathing toxic smoke, walking over the still burning rubble, now they sit on a couch playing with their phones. Lol
Kids in Chorley Lancs did exactly that when they burned the old Chortex Mill down in 1985 They put a load of old tires on the top floor set them alight which then burned through four floors The fire was that bad it leveled the hole building
Fred we miss you....luckily your captured on film forever to watch again and again( I one of them!)with your passion and educated professional presentations are brilliant. We see you maturing through your life and enthusiasm for new projects, meeting other characters along the way who you touched with your stories,drawings,back garden projects,steeple jacking,and having a pint! 🍻cheers Fred RIP....best wishes to your family. 👏👏👏👏👍🏴😉
Ah for the good old days, when we took unnecessary risks with others lives and wellbeing, no one would bring a civil claim for negligence and we avoided all that paperwork.
Ricky, fair point but the nanny state has gone too far. I remember a very different world when I was a kid back in the 80s, not so long ago and half the things we did then we couldn't even do now. Sometimes we got hurt, we had accidents, but we learned and frankly were better for it.
Superb engineering principal. On the slow motion you can clearly see her standing on the stairwell props for a fraction until they failed.Impressive stuff .Cheers!
Ah, back when the world was real and not run by risk assessing, hand wringing, namby pamby silk skinned degree holders. We have thrown away an awful lot in the last 35yrs. Heaven help us if we get in a real jam as no one can do any real work now, they all need a computer to tell them what to do ! RIP Fred, end of an era & way of life.
I was working on building sites just as the rules were all coming into force and restrictions got heavy. This was back in 2002-2004 kind of time. I was a young lad of 18 or 19, and I was able to use Stihl saws, drive a dumper and operate a minidigger on site, without tickets, just supervision. These days, I wouldn't even be able to enter a building site to just sweep the floor, nevermind actually do any work! The attitude back then was "how are young lads going to learn anything, if they can't use the equipment?" There were meant to be official training courses for this stuff, but it was still informal at this point. Nowadays it's essential, and unthinkable that someone could use any equipment without a risk assessment and a daytraining course.
Sure have thrown away an awful lot - of lives. As someone who does a lot of 'real work' - I hope I never run into you on site. Every worker should know they'll get home after work.
@@alenyaclassic well said. All these boomers pining for a Britian that never existed need a reality check. They probably think miners shouldn't sue for vibration white finger, and shipbuilders should shut up about asbestosis, and deformed children should shut up about thalidomide. Just a few results of the "golden age" before "elf and safety'.
@@martinhowe3679 Terrible Health and Safety. Kids playing on demo site. Unsafe method etc. Dibnah received cease and decist notice from HSE after this demolition.
@@user-zw8hb7zm5u If the people of the North are so fantastic, how come it is such a disaster area full of poverty. The people in London are clearly much more intelligent and hard working.
A man who didn’t consider himself second to other men or women or children….no swearing ,a bit rough around the edges but a right jewel of a person……I so miss my pop when I watch Fred movies …I only watch for his grin and his laugh…..everything else is just gravy on mash.
@@damo0666 www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/history/historical-picture.pdf Just about 700 reported killed on the job in 1974 down to about 150 in 2018 (keep in mind both population and workforce have grown in number). Nowadays the most common cause of workplace death is "falls from a height", while "struck by a moving object" is 3rd on the list, both of these seem like high risks for a guy like Fred doing the work he did. This doesn't even count people affected by respiratory issues from breathing in dust, asbestos and etc from the job site. You see more people with clipboards on the job site these days because most jobs have gotten substantially more complex and require specialized labour to reliably undertake them.
I get where you're coming from with this and I consider Fred part of a 'better' generation, but the H&S laws we have now have really improved working conditions. My dad told me stories of how blokes literally lost eyes, arms and fingers working in the 1960s when if there had been basic safety the accidents could have been avoided!
A spectacular job done here by Fred, one of my favourite videos of his demolition work. Took some real nerve inserting those supports inside, & not a hard hat in sight!...GREAT!
Making the building structurally unsafe, then happily strutting around inside the building, making sure it really is completely unsafe. The world does not see any Fred Dibnah's anymore!
Then inviting children to mill around the unsafe building. Boy would he be the heel of Britain if that thing came down prematurely and killed a few kids
@@scottkasper6378 to be fair it was his job to bring it down not to control the crowds 🤷♂️ that was what the police and site security should have been doing
Fred was one of the last decent, patriotic and dignified true British gentlemen. There are few, if any, men similar or equal to the late Fred Dibnah!!!
Respekt aus Deutschland für diesen Mann.Er erinnert mich an die alten Bauarbeiter und Schlosser in der DDR ,welche noch schmutzige Hände durch ehrliche Arbeit hatten.
These days " skilled " is used to much , but this was a skilled man , used to watch him on an old 4 channel tv with fred on in the week , talking about steam
I was around 12/13 years old , didn't speak to him there but a year after I met him and got a handshake ! Lol , I was a volunteer at Bolton steam museum, taking the admission money when he turned up . My grandad also got me his autograph when he sold Fred a load of coal he didn't need anymore, but it's lost now bah, regards Chris 😊
Fred learnt his technique based on the writings and calculations of the weight bearing strength of timber props of Aneurin Bevan's little book "Timber in Mining" From the old days when roof and roadway,also face in a coal mine was supported by timber,not steel or hydraulic chocks.
It’s great to see kids working on a demolition site, these days Fred would of been arrested for child abuse, kids these days just sit in front of a computer getting fat.
Boomers these days just sit on RU-vid yearning for a time that never existed, making stupid comments about health and safety and generalisations about the youth of today.
There are opinions on both sides about Health & Safety. I was an apprentice in a machine shop when I was 17. This was way back when long hair was all the rage. I once saw a young lad with long blond hair using a bench drill. Supposedly he should have been wearing one of those safety caps to restrain long hair but I'm unsure if he actually was. He leaned down and over to look at the progress of the job and that was when his hair became instantly entangled with the chuck. All I saw was him rearing back in a daze of total shock and one side of his head was completely bald. Two of his workmates grabbed him and held on to him otherwise he would have keeled over on the workshop floor and cracked his head wide open on top of the original injury. H&S is there for a reason but you can't put an old head on young shoulders.
Your right bud but it's the interpretation of H&S that gets mixed up and over zealous enforcers make it turn ridiculous. Being safe in anything you do and keeping others safe is a good thing. They used to call it bonkers conkers a while back because even teachers got on the bandwagon banning conkers in the playground ! But it's all about the common sense interpretation that makes it work. I had similar experience with a lad as an apprentice in another training group that was on the lathes. He was a 'new romantic type who 'had' a long left side quiff. Fell out of his hairnet and ended up flying round chuck at 3500 rpm ! 😯😯😯
My brother got sacked from a engineering factory in the 70s because he refused to have his long hair cut, he did regret it the next day when my dad give him a good hiding and took him to the barbers next day for a short back and sides, he's never lost a job since, Fred and his likes are sorely missed
Can’t burn tyres nowadays let alone all of the other stuff in this classic footage. No hard hats, no Hi viz vests, no proper exclusion zone and everyone enjoying themselves watching a master craftsman at work. He is the reason I suffer from vertigo still! 😁
When you get a quiet moment mate. Have a look at the figures of people killed and seriously injured in the construction industry back in the ‘good ol days’ compared with today.
Much preferred to have his old used dirty bowls for his peeled potatoes when on the march in his jolly steam roller, never mind what his woman thought about.
Back in 2001 I had the opportunity to do some remodel work on an old two story timber frame home. The floor had a terrible sag at the center of the building where an old stove went up to a half chimney on the second floor. I had a 20 ton Jack in the basement on some main beams and I jacked and stacked dunnage for hours. The sag in the floor was getting pretty flat when I noticed daylight peeking in most of the way around the top of the entire basement wall. I did some closer inspection and realized I was lifting the entire house. I let it back down a few inches and placed a piece of cedar telephone pole in the center to keep the floor a little better than it was.
I weep for the loss of the world this represents. Nobody is allowed to do anything any more. Much less ride a BMX on a live demolition site. The age of pitch invasions at the conclusion of test matches. The feeling that we were going to continue to be more and more free. 35 years later... Global fascism.
Virtually perfect felling job. I don’t know if he wanted it to fall sideways or straight down upon itself….but either way, it was a great result 👍 And i agree, Fred was a very special man. It’ll be hard to find another like him❤️🙏😞
I have to say, that was shocking to me. That a man could put a jack hammer to the foundation of a building and foot by foot replace it with timbers and never fear that he could die in the process
Good stuff. The stairwell props were bending. Imagine taking that tower down with chisel, props, wedges and fire. I would soon be cracking a bottle of scotch frankly.Legend.
Love the old stuff. We had no health and safety back then. We done things that the young would never do today. I drove bulldozers at age 9 and helped knock down a buildings houses ect. Best years plus world was nicer place back then.