Steeplejack shocks passers-by

Aug 2 2007 By Alison Dayani, Birmingham Mail

STUNNED passers-by were looking to the heavens when they saw a man precariously climbing up the steeple of a Birmingham cathedral.

But this wall-climber was not a lead or slate thief, but one of the few steeplejacks in the country.

Birmingham Mail reader Steve Pearson was on a first aid course at The Thistle Hotel, St Chad's Queensway, when he snapped these pictures of the man on the top of St Chad's Cathedral opposite.

The expert needed no harness or scaffolding despite being at least 150ft high. Instead his tools were a simple rope, a weight and a couple of ladders.

Steve, from Sutton Coldfield, who works for the Red Cross, said: "A group of us were doing a course on the second floor of the hotel when we looked out of the window and couldn't believe what we were seeing."

A spokesman for the office of Birmingham Archbishop Vincent Nichols, in charge of the cathedral, said the worker was genuine.

"It is nice that people were showing concern but I can assure everyone that he is an expert steeplejack working on the roof," he said.