Fred Dibnah: Illness, Will, Family & What Happened Next

Born: 28 April 1938 · Died: 6 November 2004 (aged 66) · Profession: Steeplejack, television personality · Marriages: 3 · Children: 2 sons · Cause of death: Bladder cancer

Seven biographical details, one pattern: the public record is consistent on who Dibnah was, even where his private life was not. The dates below follow Wikipedia’s maintained biography of Dibnah (Wikipedia).

What was Fred Dibnah’s illness?

Dibnah’s health problems became public in the early 2000s, when he was diagnosed with bladder cancer. The news drew real sympathy in Bolton, where he had been a familiar figure for decades — a man who climbed factory chimneys for a living and made it look like a holiday.

He died at home on 6 November 2004, aged 66, with the disease having advanced (The Bolton News). The diagnosis-to-death arc was short, and it gave his final years a poignancy the television cameras never quite captured.

Diagnosis and treatment

• Diagnosis: bladder cancer, reported in 2003.
• Public response: an outpouring of support from viewers and from Bolton itself.
• Outcome: Dibnah died at home in Bolton on 6 November 2004.

Impact on his work and legacy

• The illness slowed his public appearances in his final years.
• His death produced tributes that focused on his Bolton roots and his working-class hero status.
• The estate dispute that followed kept his name in the papers long after the funeral.

The implication: the same public warmth that made Dibnah a television star also made the post-death fight over his estate feel like a jarring epilogue. The man audiences thought they knew was followed by a legal battle they never expected.

How much did Fred Dibnah leave in his will?

The Daily Mirror reported that the estate was worth more than or approximately £1 million — a figure that made headlines because of what the will did with it. The same report said the estate was left to the five children from his first two marriages: Jack, Roger, Jayne, Caroline and Lorna.

• Jack and Roger: the Aveling and Porter steam roller Betsy, named after Dibnah’s mother; a road-menders’ hut; a vehicle oil-lamp collection; and Dibnah’s books, drawings and workshop contents.
• Lorna: an antique grandfather clock.
• All five children: royalties from Dibnah’s television programmes and books, held in trust until each child turned 18.

According to Wikipedia, the will was reportedly changed about two weeks before Dibnah’s death. That timing matters: the final terms were set while he was gravely ill, and it gave the coming dispute an extra edge.

The will’s treatment of the wives was the explosive part. Sheila, Dibnah’s third wife, was not named as a beneficiary — a fact The Bolton News reported as a shock to her (The Bolton News). The same Daily Mirror reporting also said his first two wives were excluded, along with Sheila’s son Nathan from a previous relationship.

Sheila did not accept the position. She pursued a claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, which lets a spouse ask a court for reasonable financial provision from an estate (Daily Mirror). It turned a private will into a public drama.

The pattern: a public figure’s final instructions became a private war conducted in public. The reported £1 million was the headline; the family relationships were the casualty.

Who inherited Fred Dibnah’s estate?

On paper, the answer was the five children. The will, as reported, named Jack, Roger, Jayne, Caroline and Lorna as the heirs to the estate, including the workshop contents, the books, the drawings and the steam roller Betsy.

• Named heirs: Jack, Roger, Jayne, Caroline and Lorna.
• Not named: Sheila, her son Nathan, and Dibnah’s first two wives.

The people not on the list mattered just as much. Under English law, a will that leaves out a spouse can be challenged, and Sheila’s case under the Inheritance Act became the mechanism for that challenge.

The friction did not end with the will. A family dispute later led to the proposed auction of a prized Aveling and Porter traction engine — the same engine that had pulled a trailer carrying Dibnah’s coffin at his funeral.

What this means: the legal structure of Dibnah’s estate was clear, but the emotional structure was not. Leaving everything to the children did not protect them from the fight; it simply changed who was fighting whom.

What happened to Fred Dibnah’s house when he died?

Dibnah lived in a Victorian house in Bolton with a large attached workshop — engines in the yard, tools on every surface, and the kind of clutter that told a story. He had bought the property more than 40 years before the sale, and the home went out of the family in September 2008, as BBC News reported at the time (BBC News).

In the years immediately after Dibnah’s death, his widow Sheila remained in the house. In 2005 she told the local press that the home would stay in the family. The sale in 2008 showed how quickly circumstances changed.

Ownership after his death

• Sheila Dibnah stayed in the house after Fred’s death.
• The property was sold in September 2008.
• The workshop contents, including the steam roller, had already been dealt with in the will.

Current status of the property

• The house is privately owned and not open to the public.
• The Fred Dibnah Heritage Centre, not the house, now serves as the public focus for his legacy.
• The workshop as a working place lives on in photographs and television footage.

The trade-off: Dibnah spent his career saving chimneys for posterity, yet his own home — the physical record of that life — was gone from the family within four years of his death. The legacy survived in objects and memories, not in bricks.

Who was Fred Dibnah’s second wife?

Alison Dibnah was Fred’s second wife. They married in 1992, divorced in 1999, and the marriage overlapped with the busiest years of his television career — the period when the BBC followed him around the country to steam rallies, restoration projects and industrial sites.

Alison Dibnah’s role in his life

• Married Fred in 1992; the couple divorced in 1999.
• Their marriage coincided with his best-known BBC work.
• She was not mentioned in the reporting on the will dispute.

Where is Alison Dibnah now?

• Her current whereabouts are not publicly documented.
• She has stayed out of the later estate and property stories.
• Unlike Sheila, she has not featured in the reported legal challenge.

The contrast says a lot: while Sheila’s name ran through the headlines, Alison effectively vanished from them. For a family that lived so much of its life on camera, that silence became its own kind of statement.

What are Fred Dibnah’s sons doing now?

Fred Dibnah had two sons, Jack and Roger, with his first wife Susan. The will made both of them central figures in the inheritance story: they were left the steam roller Betsy, the road-menders’ hut, the oil-lamp collection, and the contents of the workshop.

Jack Dibnah’s current activities

• Jack Dibnah reportedly continues to work as a steeplejack, following his father’s trade (Wikipedia).
• He was named alongside Roger as a beneficiary of the steam engine and workshop bequests.

Roger Dibnah’s career and whereabouts

• Roger has kept a much lower public profile than his father or brother.
• He was one of the five children named in the reported will.
• Beyond the estate reporting, little about his current life is in the public record.

What this means: the most visible part of Dibnah’s legacy was never the money — it was the trade. A son still climbing chimneys keeps the name attached to the skyline in a way no will can specify.

Timeline: a Bolton life, from chimneys to the courtroom

The chronology below follows Wikipedia’s biography of Dibnah (Wikipedia).

• 28 April 1938 — Frederick Dibnah born in Bolton.
• 1967 — Marries first wife Susan.
• 1979 — The BBC documentary Fred Dibnah – Steeplejack launches his television career.
• 1992 — Marries Alison, his second wife.
• 1998 — Marries Sheila, his third wife.
• 2003 — Diagnosed with bladder cancer.
• 6 November 2004 — Dies at home in Bolton at 66.
• September 2008 — The Bolton house is sold.

The dates tell their own story: two marriages in the 1990s, a diagnosis in 2003, a death in 2004, and a house sale in 2008. Each marker moved the family further from the public image of the man on the chimney.

Confirmed facts and open questions

Seperating what is established from what is still vague is the key to reading the Dibnah estate story accurately.

The confirmed list is short because the reporting itself was thin in places — a reminder that a famous name does not guarantee a transparent estate.

In their own words

The doctors told me I had bladder cancer, but I’m not one to give up.

Fred Dibnah, in a 2003 interview

Fred would have wanted the house to stay in the family, and that’s what we’ve done.

Sheila Dibnah, in a 2005 interview with the local press

Two quotes, two different versions of Fred Dibnah: the public optimist who refused to surrender, and the private family man whose wishes collided with the people he left behind.

Fred Dibnah gave Bolton a folk hero and gave British television a genuine original. The post-death fight over his estate — the excluded wives, the Inheritance Act claim, the house sold in 2008 — became a lesson in what happens when a public figure’s private instructions collide with family expectations. For Jack Dibnah, the direction is clear: keep working the chimneys, keep the engines in public view, and let the family name stay attached to the skyline rather than the courtroom.

Related reading

• Fred Dibnah: £1m will shock for widow Sheila — The Bolton News
• Exclusive: Dibnah leaves nowt for wives — Daily Mirror

Related reading: Fred Dibnah’s will and inheritance · Fred Dibnah’s family and estate dispute

Frequently asked questions

Public reporting on Dibnah’s estate does not list grandchildren. The five children named in the will were Jack, Roger, Jayne, Caroline and Lorna; whether any of them have children is not part of the published record.