If something is prohibited because of health and safety, it probably isn’t health and safety.

If it is beacuse of health and safety, ladders would be banned because the ground isn’t safe to stand a ladder on or the wall can’t take it or there are steam pipes in the way, etc. Not “because of health and safety”.

Hearing “because of health and safety” is a highly reliable indicator of ignorant BS.

I never said it was down to ‘health and safety’, it would’ve been a site wide risk assessment that deemed the advantages not worth the risk.

Fred Dibnah – what a legend. How on earth can you get your head round climbing those chimneys with those massive overhangs in a boiler suit and hobnail boots with no harness or safety gear. Absolutely nuts.

I’m guessing that was all they had at the time, no one had invented the sit harness etc…

Having said that, they did exist, but possibly not widely used outside mountaineering.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climbing_harness

Dibnah was smart though, he used to have two pints of beer to steady his nerves before the first climb of the day.

As someone who get jittery on top of a stool in the kitchen those videos nearly made me throw up.
Times past and all that…but surely even Noakes must have been thinking flares weren’t quite appropriate for that climb!

Noaks has gone on record in recent years about how truly p***** he was at the time and still is as he was pretty sure there was never any insurance in place if he was ever injured or worse.

I just watched the Nelson video…. The bit where he is standing above Nelson’s hat…. That made me physically shudder.

What about the camera man? He had to lug his kit up there and doesn’t even get to be on the TV!

how truly p***** he was at the time and still is

p******* – pissed off? paranoid? pert? Trying to think of a relevant word that would need ****ing out.

and still is

I suspect he’s mellowed on that score in the last couple of years.

I suspect he’s mellowed on that score in the last couple of years.

He’s discussed it at length with Joe and Roger.

He’ll get by with a little help from his friends.