My explosive career, from Dusty Bin to Dales disasters

Not everyone can bring a dustbin to life, instantly turn landscapes into a winter wonderland or whip up a storm with the flick of a switch, but then there’s something special about Ian Rowley and his family.

With five generations having made their mark in showbusiness, the 67-year-old heads up his 
own special effects company 
from a base in Rodley. In a career which has spanned more than 50 years, Ian has been responsible for some of the region’s most spectacular moments on the big and small screen.

He has 5,000 productions under his belt, including a long-running stint on Emmerdale and building the live action Dusty Bin for quiz show 3,2,1. He has also worked on films such as The Full Monty and acclaimed productions like Red Riding, not to mention a specially-arranged post office explosion carried out for the Queen in 2002.

When he speaks to the Yorkshire Post, he has just finished his part on the BBC adaptation of Death Comes to Pemberley – PD James’s murder mystery take on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice – and is preparing to help a weather programme demonstrate how a caravan can be destroyed by a hurricane.

But how did Ian find himself helming an effects company which played a key role in memorable moments, such as Emmerdale’s spectacular 1993 air crash? He certainly had plenty of people in his life to inspire him. His great grandfather, comedian J W Rowley, was the only Yorkshireman to appear in the Royal Command Performance in 1912 for George V and Queen Mary at the Palace Theatre, London. Ian’s father, Alf Rowley, with whom he worked, was trained as a senior scenic artist, and worked with the likes of Harry Corbett on The Sooty Show.

“It was difficult working for my dad; he was a stern taskmaster. I persevered and stuck at it and it set me in good stead,” says Ian. Their work on The Sooty Show, where they were responsible for the bangs and flashes that made the puppet bear’s world that bit more magical, fired his imagination.

It also meant that he grew up within the industry, unlike many of his special effects colleagues who often came from the Army after working with ordnance.

And it looks as if the family legacy is set to continue. Both his sons, Rob and Roger, work with Ian in his firm although, he stresses, he takes a different approach with them than his father did with him. Both are keen musicians, and the younger of the two, Roger, has the leading role in stage show Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story. And they are not the only ones who have played a key role in the industry. Ian’s wife Sheila was secretary to the head of drama at YTV.

Ian says he has a gauge for when he knows he has done an outstanding job: “My benchmark is the crew’s reaction,” he says. “If you can get a round of applause from the crew, then you know it’s a success.”

Ian has been associated with a whole host of technical wizardry for television since he built a live action Dusty Bin character for the quiz show 3,2,1. In the years which followed, his name has become synonymous with special effects including the Emmerdale plane crash. It was something of a watershed moment for the drama, which had a reputation as a cheery and some might say sleepy soap. The plane crash took three weeks to film, and reportedly cost over £1m. Devised by Brookside creator Phil Redmond, it would rescue Emmerdale from the doldrums and give the show its highest ever viewing figure of about 16 million. For the blistering opener, they lined up a blazing part of the wreckage to crash into a purpose built barn. “It was an amazing thing to be involved in,” Ian said. “It went from Emmerdale to being like a feature film, with effect after effect.”

Fast forward nine years and Emmerdale was in need of another headline grabbing stunt. This time it was a gas explosion and when the production team needed someone to collapse a 53-tonne house it was again Ian who they called on. The sequence won Ian a Royal Television Society award from the Royal Television Society. It is the sort of thing which means a lot to him, but nevertheless he admits the accolades are often a lottery.

“It’s a bit of a mystery how you get nominated,” he said. “I’m not interested in chasing awards, I’m quite happy continuing the way I am.”

While it’s the explosions which may attract the attention of the viewers and the wider industry, Ian says that creating the subtlety of a rain shower or smog for productions set in yesteryear is his real badge of pride.

Those are the kind of atmospheric touches most won’t notice when they settle down to the latest period drama, but every burning torches is carefully calibrated to burn at a certain brightness. And as your Sunday night television hero walks through a misty field, that effect was created by hundreds of 
metres of tubing, punctured 
with holes to make sure the mist is just right.

One of the productions Ian is clearly enamoured with is the new drama series Peaky Blinders, about gangs formed after the First World War, starring Cillian Murphy and Sam Neill. “It is epic,” he said. “We had to create the feel of the heavy industrial areas this story is set in. Imagine yourself in the turn of the century, with all the dust and dirt in the air – we have to make that atmosphere.”

Ian’s subtle touch can be seen in The Full Monty, which took the story of Sheffield’s steelworkers to a global audience and which earned the title of the UK’s highest grossing film until it was outstripped by Titanic.

Whenever people ask where the special effects were, he points them to a moment in a canal, where Robert Carlyle stood on a sinking car in the middle of a river.

It might not be as iconic as the Hot Stuff dole queue scene, but it was Ian who off camera was controlling the gentle rocking of the vehicle. He admits that while filming no one could have predicted just how successful the film would be.

“I nearly turned it down,” he says. “We went on the recce and it was wet and miserable.” Not an encouraging sign if you are going to spend much of the time in freezing water wearing a dry suit. Fortunately, Ian did accept the job and the rest was history. The production went on to win an Oscar and clean up at the Baftas – and as it was a profit-share job, the film’s success was good news for Ian.

The latest commission can requiring dropping everything at a moment’s notice. However, for every holiday he has had to give up to head straight out to a production, he has had the chance to work with the likes of Sean Bean (Ian oversaw his murder in the David Peace adaptation Red Riding and describes him as “absolutely brilliant”) as well as comedy legends like Kenny Everett (who was “nuts, and such a laugh”) and Hollywood royalty like Vincent Price.

Ian’s arguably proudest and most nerve-racking challenge came during the Queen’s visit to the Emmerdale set in 2002. When he was told the royal party had particularly requested to see the special effects department he thought it might be a joke. It wasn’t and as the news sank in, Ian knew it would be a defining moment in his career.

“I knew I had to get this right or it was the Tower of London for me,” he laughs. As part of the tour, they carefully rigged the Emmerdale post office to explode. Needless to say safety was paramount, and if ever a moment justifies the lengthy and exhaustive checks people like Ian constantly carry out, now was the time.

After the explosion rocketed through the air, and the dust settled, and the Queen turned and headed on her way, Ian admits the overwhelming feeling was one of relief. It was, he says, both his strangest day at work, and the biggest honour.

“It was the biggest pressure of my life – the event was played worldwide. It has not sunk in that it happened even after all these years.”