A Cast-Iron Will

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Professor Sarah Harper is the director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing – a rather solemn reference to the happy fact that people are living longer, and in better health, than ever before. She and the estate eventually reached a settlement, so her case – like most cases – never reached court. And it may not look like it, but it is part of how Britain as a whole is gradually waking up to some tough new truths about the surprising decline of inheritance, and where families in this century are going, both rich and poor.

Sheila Dibnah - 2QT Sheila Dibnah - 2QT

But due to an ongoing dispute with Mr Dibnah’s widow, Sheila, whom he married in 1998, the will — which was read in 2007 — has still not been settled.It was intended to help protect the close dependents of someone who has died – preventing a step-parent from impoverishing the children by walking off with everything, for example (exactly as happened to the retail expert Mary Portas and her brother when they were teenagers). Instead she left her whole estate (principally comprising her house) to three animal charities she cared little for, and followed this with a letter to the Ilotts telling them about it. In March 1984, when things were still very strained between them, Melita took the ultimate sanction available to a parent: she formally disinherited Heather and wrote her out of her will. For centuries, “freedom of testamentary disposition” – the right to put your money where you like – has been presumed by many Britons, but now it is crumbling at the edges. For the generations who grew up hoping to bequeath and to inherit – Melita Jackson’s and Heather Ilott’s generations, roughly – this is a sharp disappointment.

Widow Sheila’s delight as life with Fred turns into a drama Widow Sheila’s delight as life with Fred turns into a drama

People are only realising it slowly, but this means that in England and Wales you are no longer completely free to bequeath what you want to who you wish. Harper cites evidence that those who can are increasingly starting to pay inheritances early, as a child or grandchild’s tuition fees, or a deposit for a first mortgage. The play follows the steeplejack through his later years as he falls in love with a glamorous younger woman and deals with the repercussions of having been diagnosed with cancer. Nicholas and Heather got married without telling her mother, and in 1983 gave birth to her first grandchild, which became the occasion for their first reconciliation. My private-client colleagues were absolutely outraged at the first Ilott decision,” says Amanda Smallcombe, a partner who specialises in Inheritance Act cases at the law firm Birkett Long.

Smallcombe says many of her clients come to her saying only that their treatment in a will has been unfair, and she then informs them that this option exists. Leon Powsney, who has turned Fred’s home in Radcliffe Road, The Haulgh, into a heritage centre, said: “It was amazing and very emotional. Thirdly, people are living longer, often with extended periods of mental decline at the end of their lives, which makes them vulnerable to influence and confusion when it comes to wills.

engine for sale in bid to settle will dispute Fred’s engine for sale in bid to settle will dispute

Their children can step in to help, of course, but in doing so they will lose what meagre earnings they’ve been able to get without having had any help from their parents through university. TV steeplejack Fred Dibnah, whose wife, Sheila, claimed that his will was altered to exclude her while he was was mentally fragile and under the influence of others. We are now moving into an adapted generational contract, which means that older people have more responsibility for themselves than in the past.This assumes, by no means safely, that the RSPCA, the RSPB and Blue Cross, who were legally compelled by Melita’s will to fight her daughter, do not open yet another chapter of the whole sad story by taking the case to the supreme court. The production also proved popular with Alf Molyneux, a friend of Fred’s who travelled around the country with him on a traction engine.