Watched Grand Designs revisited last night. I do admire the finished structures even if not to my taste but the programme seems to show a frightening lack of compliance with most if not all H&S regulations. Yul

Not sure about that Bob Deuteronomy 22:8 'When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence'. (King James Version) I think the recent case with the stone cutters being prosecuted by the HSE, after they took part in a show (and had several warnings), may cause some to improve their behaviour. Its a good opportunity to showcase their skills so a small change to improve how they opperate can only benefit them. Some, however will just bumble on until they become a statistic

Watched a programme last week about Honister slate mines, at one point they were checking if the slate at was any good. They had a ladder that looked like it was about 15-20ft in length on the top of tower scaffold. Once they loosened the slate it fell hitting the tower scaffold and all that was said was 'is everyone alright' and they continued to work. We certainly seem to have come along way.

The activity mentioned by farrell at #5 was actually a routine safety procedure in slate mines to look for and dislodge loose and potentially loose pieces of slate, usually carried after a blasting operation. However, paradoxically, if the tower scaffold shown supporting the ladder wasn't tied or otherwise secured against toppling, the access system shown was far from safe! The guy at the top of the ladder, almost certainly the then mine owner, was using a crowbar or similar implement to check for and dislodge the loose pieces. As the TV documentary mentioned, he died earlier this year when his helicopter crashed at Honister. A great tragedy because he re-opened Honister slate mine as a working mine in the 1990s after it had been dormant for some years, and also developed it as a major tourist attraction and a source of employment in the area. As a mining historian with particular interest in slate mines and quarries (but no professional involvement) I can report that some disused slate mines in North Wales and Cumbria still contain a few very long wooden ladders (or bits of them) which used to be used for the 'roofing' safety work. Ropes were probably used with them as a multi-person task to help lift and position them, and perhaps also keep them in place. The roofer men may or may not have had harnesses or used ropes to secure themselves in place while working from the ladders. Also, helmets weren’t generally used in slate quarries and mines until after WW2. This was probably because of a long prevailing fatalistic attitude to safety in the industry and also because reasonably effective and lightweight helmets simply weren’t available until the development of plastics. As for Fred Dibnah, his methods when featured on TV apparently did attract attention from HSE. However, as he was self-employed, it's not clear what action HSE could take if he was working alone and the chimneys being felled were in locations where others were unlikely to be harmed.