Fred Dibnah (1938-2004)

Climbing the heights

When Fred Dibnah became terminally ill with cancer in his early 60s, he had slightly more than a million pounds in the bank, five children, two ex-wives, one current wife and one step-son, whom he had not adopted.

The steeplejack, engineer, steam-engine buff and television star also had a will that he no longer liked, so he made a new one - leaving most of his estate to his children, and nothing at all to Sheila, his wife.

Did family members unduly influence Dibnah as he lay dying in a Bolton hospice? Had he lost his mental capacity? Maybe. Maybe not. But Sheila Dibnah threatened high court action on the grounds that, as his wife, she was entitled to reasonable provision.

In the event, the dispute was settled without ruinously costly litigation.

If the case had gone to court, none of Dibnah's extended family would have emerged victorious, whatever the legal outcome. A million pounds is not a lot of money if legal fees and court costs have to come out of it. The estate might have vanished up the courthouse's chimney.

Why did Dibnah cut his wife out of his will in the first place?

The definitive answer may never come to light, but Fred had disinherited family members before. When his first marriage broke down many years earlier and his wife took their three daughters, he made a new will and excluded them.

And before he entered the hospice, Fred threatened to rewrite his will after a quarrel with Sheila, but this was apparently a routine husband-wife spat that, when the dust settled, did not occasion a redrafted will. Disinheriting people who annoy you was not invented by Dibnah.

From Bolton to Buckingham Palace

Born in Bolton in 1938, Dibnah first came to national attention in the late 1970s, when he hovered 240 feet above ground repairing the Bolton town hall clock tower. He was being filmed at the time, so he and his work came to national attention.

Over the next two decades he appeared in nearly two dozen documentaries, wrote his autobiography (The Fred Dibnah Story), and gave after-dinner talks.

He was awarded an MBE in 2003, and he intended to drive himself into Buckingham Palace atop one of his steam engines. The Palace nixed that idea, fearing that the heavy vehicle might damage the road surface.

Dibnah and his first wife, Alison, eloped and tied the knot in Gretna Green. They had three daughters, but Alison was resentful at playing second fiddle to steam engines, and they divorced in 1985.

Two years later, Dibnah married Susan, who was twenty years younger, and had two sons with her. After ten years, she left him for another man.

They divorced in 1996 after, after another two-year hiatus, Dibnah married another woman twenty years his junior. Sheila and her son moved into his home, a Victorian gatehouse in Bolton. In about 2001 he was diagnosed with cancer, and although he was expected to die within the year, he held out for three years. When he changed his will, he knew that the end was near, and he died less than a month later.

At his well-attended funeral in Bolton, his coffin was carried on one of his beloved restored steam engines, driven by one of his sons. He was buried in Tonge cemetery near his gatehouse home.

A few years later, the same engine was sold at auction, its proceeds used to settle the case brought by Sheila. The engine sold for £264,000, double the guide price. (The buyer was Michael Oliver, a private collector with an envious stable of cars.)

Fred's gatehouse home also went to Leon Powsney, a private buyer whose original intention was to live in the house as an ordinary residence. However, so many people came to see the house where the famous and beloved steeplejack had lived that he turned it into the Fred Dibnah Heritage Centre.

UPDATE JANUARY 2012 Heritage Centre owner Leon Powsney wants to form a group of trustees to take over the home/museum via a form of public ownership. Powsney hopes to raise £1m, primarily from modest contributions from Fred's supporters. The goal, if reached, should enable the trustees to purchase the home from him at a market rate. The funds should also suffice for property refurbishments and a museum manager. www.freddibnahheritagecentre.co.uk