These fearless gentlemen both clearly had a head for heights - while most of us, one suspects, wouldn't do the job of a steeplejack for love nor money.
From medieval times, as churches and cathedrals sprung up across the land, workers were needed to firstly construct and secondly maintain spires and towers which were built ever taller as architects and builders reached for the skies.
Then as the industrial revolution gathered pace in the 19th century came huge chimney stacks, thousands of them - particularly in Northern England, that pumped smoke and dirt from factories into the air. Readers of a certain age will remember the heart-stopping exploits of Fred Dibnah, the Bolton steeplejack who achieved considerable television fame in the 1970s and 80s, demolishing or repairing towering factory chimneys high up across Lancashire and West Yorkshire.
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Our two photographs come a from a set recently added to the digitised ChronicleLive archive that were originally captured in December 1971. We see steeplejacks Harry Ford and Brian Hogg preparing the chimney at North Shields' Minton Lane Gasworks for demolition.
They are quite striking images, with the two men obliviously hard at work high above the old, smoky terraced streets of the town. As Fred Dibnah used to joke on his TV series, "you're just one slip away from half a day out with the undertaker."
Under the headline, Life At The Top Of A Ladder, our sister title, The Journal, reported: "Brian Hogg and his partner Harry Ford are steeplejacks, and yesterday they were 100-and-odd feet above North Shields, knocking down the chimney of the old Minton Lane Gasworks.
"We see Harry taking a break on the narrow rim of the chimney - as if it was a park bench. Brian, 31, thinks this is a picnic. He has knocked down an 800-footer before. But 100ft or 800ft, it's much the same if you fall.
"Normally they work alone, but yesterday they were joined by photographer Geoff Hewitt who made the long, slow climb to the top." Fifty years on, respect to Geoff - and the two steeplejacks, Brian Hogg and Harry Ford.
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