Mervyn Simpson i knew quiet well great character,the whiskey bottle got the better of him in the end he fell in the house and got pneumonia and died over three years ago now.

He started out at a rochdale steeplejack firm ,who were the main competitors to H tatham and son,mervyn and peter both told me about the arguments and set to's in the over jobs between petes grandfather and the owner of the other firm.Mervyn was made foreman steeplejack then in the late 50's went into partnership with jack and sammy brooks,but went on his own about 1968 when jack hung himself in prison.he also had a good sideline safeblowing and a very good cafe his wife ran next to his house.

I remember when he blew plum mill chimney in heywood ,he must have over-loaded it with explosives because he blew all the windows out of the greenhouses at the allotments 200yards away and alot of the house windows on the other side of the allotments.he was also a very good jazz pianist.

Great stuff Tom, I shall root the pics out.  He must have improved over the years because when he dropped Dee it was very tidy.  Just a small crump and not a brick left standing.  He used about 40 small pills, most of them on the side he wanted it to fall, and a few over at the back to give it a kick, all put in from the inside if I remember rightly.  I know Peter didn't like it but used properly it could save a lot of hard graft.

Mervyn was blowing some engine beds once it was supposed to be just enough to crack them open but when they blew one of them it shot up in the air and landed in almost the same place nearly totally in tact,he blamed that on bad pills.They are the only 2 jobs i've heard go wrong for him though.

can't wait to see the pics of dee mill.

I won't be on steeplejack corner for 4 days going to ireland tommorow pleasure not buisness.i hope to resume our chat on my return.

Ronnie Goggins (seated) on Mons chimney.  Ronnie had a bad motorcycle accident and lost a leg about 4 years before I did this pic.  Talk about hard men!  I have found the negs of the felling pics of Dee and Jubilee mills.  I shall scan them and put them up shortly.......

Iam sure it was steven goggins who only has 1 leg ,Ronnie is in one piece physically anyway ,i believe his wife is very poorly though.

Great pics of dee mill,i remember you taking me and peter round the engine house it had been ransacked ,things smashed and lots of things stolen.great shame it wasn't kept as a working engine and museum,not like the big white box littlewoods have built on the site.

I've just remembered working at leigh spinners about 8 years ago ,to access the chimney we had to climb through a window and walk over the roof ,one day i just happened to look through a window and saw a steam engine which looked in quite good condition,people i've spoken to since say they won't do anything with it or let anybody else.Are engines listed or will it one day meet the scrapmans hammer.

The engineer there mr williams who'd worked there for about 50 years once told me when tinkers steeplejacks used to repair the chimney in the late 60s early 70s one of the jack's fell 200 ft inside ,they said he survived the fall but suffercated in the soot at the bottom?i've tried to get this tale verrified but can't ,have you heard this story on your travels STANLEY?....

pete tatham once told me he inspected a chimney in barlick  and it was built like a corkscrew ,instead of being level coarses of brickwork it spiraled like a screw do you know which stack this was or is?.once worked on one in bolton that was built this way.

UNUSUAL CHIMNEY SHAPES.

most chimneys are round,octaganal or square,but i worked on one in reddish that was 7 sided,absolute pain in the butt to stage,had to use a three cornered stage first perfected by santons steeplejacks in the 60s for this stack ,before H frames thought about(thats them big stupid things you have to fix with something you have to leave in to rust and do more damage ).

Pete tatham also told me something and i shouldn't tell anybody.some form of building regulation about 1900 said that no square chimney should exceed 10 times of the diametre at the base,octaganal 11 times ,circular 12,this was down to wind loading against the chimnmey.

i've tested this over the years and i believe he is about right with only 1 or 2 exceptions ,must have been dificult around around oldham and rochdale in them days.prior to that it was down to the chimney builders judgment.

This is the twisted chimney I think.  From Walter Pickles' book, 'Our Grimy Heritage'.  I agree with you about lumps of iron left in the chimney to rot, a lot of them were old dogs on some chimneys.  Peter used to favour a chain or a wire rope round the drum just over the oversail when he hung a scaffold.  We built heavy stainless steel through bars into the new drum at Ellenroad for an anchorage for the GRP cone we put on it to limit rain ingress.  I made them a lot bigger than was necessary so they could be used as anchorages for bosuns chairs and scaffolding.  Brooke Edgeley used them whenever they were on the chimney.  There were some local regulations but as a general rule, almost all chimneys were built with a batter of one inch in three feet.  Some of those big octagonal ones round Preston are wider at the base and they look really funny.

chimneys that look like church spires they have that much batter in them.

always wondered why Preston and Darwen had a greater number of square and octagonal chimneys opposed to circular.(got ladders up horrocks stack for repairs just waiting for good weather)

the picture must have been the one pete talked about,not what i had pictured in my minds eye.

THE LANCASHIRE STEEPLEJACK 1898.

Holdenwood antiques

Grane rd

Haslingden

Lanc's

England

Newly rebound in 1/4 green leather   £75

01706 830803       john@holdenwood.co.uk

I can't afford it but I've mailed him.  We must have the full text and the pics for the world......  I shall be looking for negs today....  Leigh Spinners, bent chimneys and Dee Mill etc.

Thanks for being patient.  I've been busy.  Apart from this pic of the engine at Leigh Spinners that I took in 1978 I've scanned about 300 negs in the last few days and some of them are of an extremely youthful Tom Philips....  Mind you, he was still ugly.....

The Leigh engine was by Yates and Thom of Blackburn and was installed in 1925.  The cylinders are named 'Mayor' and 'Mayoress'.  36"HP, 60"LP 5Ft stroke.  This was one of the largest cross compound engines that Y&T made and if it still survives it is the last one left to my knowledge.  There is an earlier Yates engine, another small cross compound built before the amalgametion and this is being rebuilt to steam at Masson Mill in Derbyshire.