Young Tom painting Bancroft chimney with double boiled linseed oil in 1981 when the buidings were being refurbished for the newly formed Bancroft Trust. 

Iam so ugly now iam thinking of getting my head shaved ,growing a thick beard and having my ear pierced(remind you of anyone STANLEY).HAHAHA.

The guys at the Ellen road say that the leigh spinners engine is still there but i don't know what condition its in now.

I dont think the lad painting is me i started for pete a year later,lucky lad does look like me from the top .

How about that Tom!  Ellenroad chimney 1986.  You and Peter were getting ready for putting the new drum on the top of the chimney.

Thats the ugly devil ,look like i could with a good meal inside me,I remember it was a beautiful day not a breath of wind when this was taken,I think the lad at Bancroft was peter and dots nephew he nicknamed him Donald after Fred Dibnahs labourer.

The m62 looked like a country lane then,Butterworth hall mill and chimney in the background.

You're right, it was a nice day.  Not often we were up at that height without the woolies and the hats.  I've even got me brothel creepers on instead of boots, most unusual.  Peter took this pic with one of my cameras.

Ellenroad chimney, 1986, preparing the existing stonework ready for erecting the new drum on it.  We were handsome lads in those days.........

This is what a steeplejack does when he decides a bit of DIY is in order.  Tom on the ladder and Peter on the scaffold at Tim's Terrace in Milnrow 1986.

On the Ellenroad i had removed the iron chimney band which went round the big top stones iam sat on to replace the bolts with new (1 inch diameter ),i was drilling holes in the picture ,yes drilling, with a hammer and rose chisel which cut a nice 1/2 inch diameter hole to take some copper pegs to re-sit the band on,so you dont have to over tighten the band on top of the chimney which is the weakest point of the structure ,over tightening can do more harm than good here ,what I call "strangling the chimney" it would lift those big stones off there mortar bed right round the front of the joint allowing the elements in.

I also removed the coronal band ,this is a copper lightning conductor tape which runs round the top of the chimney and fixed to the down tape which runs to earth,the point of the coronal is to stop the electricity arcing when lightning strikes giving it a continuous circuit,we re-fixed it back to the top after building the drum.

TIM'S TERRACE named after tim bobbin real name john collier school teacher and poet if iam not mistaken whos house originaly stood there,hope iam right if not stanley will correct me.Peter bought the last house in the terrace and then he owned the lot,when we started it still had stone sinks ,gas mantles and toilet was in the cellar underneath i think he paid 2 grand plus whatever to do it up ,i thought it was stupid money ,obviously i was wrong.On completion the man from the council came to pass the job only to return a day later with his boss ,they had never seen such a transformation.We did the whole job in about 3to4 months ,it would take that long now to read the method statement.

Heres quite an interesting read .G REED AND SON STEEPLEJACKS.

  http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/ogara/reed.htm