A FORMER BBC technician has spoken to the Guardian about his friendship with England’s so-called last hangman, Albert Pierrepoint.

The executioner shot to notoriety during the Second World War for hanging 200 Nazi war criminals.

Don Jacobs, of Moss Drive, Middlewich, met him some 50 years ago when Pierrepoint ran a pub near Failsworth called Help The Poor Struggler.

Mr Jacobs’ colleague, Alec Yates, who was a rigger supervisor for the BBC, and his wife Ethel, were regulars at the pub and introduced him to the hangman.

Don, 83, said: “We knew what he did but we never questioned it. He didn’t talk about it and we didn’t ask.

“It has been said that there was a sign over the bar that said ‘Stop hanging around’ – but that’s a load of rubbish. He wouldn’t allow that.”

Pierrepoint came from a family of hangmen and it is believed he conducted 608 executions. Despite his reputation, however, he was not the last hangman.

His life has been transformed into various TV dramas and films, including 2006’s Pierrepoint starring Timothy Spall.

“He was so unlike a hangman,” said Don, who served in Burma during the Second World War.

“I don’t think he was really happy doing it. You could see some sort of change in him the next day after an execution.

“But if you walked in for a pint, you wouldn’t know it was him.”

Pierrepoint even had to execute a friend, James Corbitt, who had murdered his wife. The pair had used to sit around the piano in the pub and called each other ‘Tish’ and ‘Tosh’.

Don, who has been married to his wife, Joan, for 58 years, said: “He had to measure him up (for the gallows). It was his mate, but he still did it.”

Grandfather-of-three Don last saw Pierrepoint in 1991, the year before he died.

“I was very sad when he died,” remembers Don, adding: “I think I was in Scotland at the time so I couldn’t go to the funeral.”

Don worked for the BBC in Manchester between 1955 and 1986. He filmed in an iron-ore mine in Scunthorpe and closed-down streets in Middlewich in 1956 to record a service at St Michael and All Angels Church.

But Don never had the chance to capture Pierrepoint on camera.

He said: “I’m glad we didn’t as I don’t think he liked publicity at all.”