| |
 |
|
|
Chimneys Fred's First Chimney |
FRED'S FIRST CHIMNEY "Everybody said our Fred was a lunatic" Fred's first chimney was the one he built on top of his mother's terraced house when he was sixteen.
It was a miniature mill chimney and it towered along with Bolton Wanderers' floodlights above the streets of the town. His mother was not very impressed with Fred's handy work - "He clapped that chimney on the roof when he was sixteen and I've had to live with it ever since. It's awful. I came home one day from work and there it was sticking up in the sky. The photographer came from the Evening News. People drove here on Sunday afternoons to stare at it. Everybody said our Fred was a lunatic"
Through the years Fred had to keep it swept because nobody else would do it. He used a method he had learned in Germany. Instead of shoving brushes up he worked from the top, dropping down an iron ball with a brush attached. Public opinion about it seems to have matured with the passing years. There's even talk of a preservation order on it as an historic monument. |
|
