Fred: The Definitive Biography Of Fred Dibnah

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To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Alan faithfully acknowledges the skill and craftsmanship of Fred Dibnah and portrays evocatively the sentiment in Fred’s heart as yet another magnificent monument to Victorian Engineering thunders, inch perfect in position, to the ground. This behind-the-scenes account of that ambitious journey is made all the more remarkable by Fred's heroic efforts to complete it while suffering from terminal cancer.

Alan McEwen’s writing style and respect for accurate documentation serve to make a very interesting book even more interesting. Such was its popularity that a subsequent volume swiftly followed, offering many more memories of Fred through, images from throughout his life and insights into his fascinating story. Fred's love for all things steam is also a practical one; for the last 27years, he has been renovating a steam boiler and engine in his back garden and it is now nearly complete.Finally, 'Victorian Splendour' sees Fred looking at the achievements of architects in the 19th century and discovering the story behind the building of the Palace of Westminster and Big Ben. Alan knew Fred for many years and Fed would regale Alan with stories of steeplejacking and chimney drops, embellished in a way that only Fred could do. Keith Langston contributes news and feature material on a regular basis across a wide range of heritage titles.

With his trademark flat cap, enthusiasm and knowledge of the country’s steam past, his gift for storytelling, and his cry of ‘Did you like that? In this book, published to tie in with a BBC2 series, he shares his experiences as a steeplejack, his love of machinery of all types, and his forthright views on life in general. It's his biography that tells the story of his life, from childhood right through to his last years and it's heartwarmingly open, honest and genuine. As Fred eloquently put it, ‘these chimneys had served their masters well; they were no longer loved and had therefore to be done away with: demolished’.

Fred became famous through a TV series on his methods, using well tried Victorian practice of ‘gobbing out and pit propping’. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.