Mention the trade, and the associations conjured up are of a distant, Victorian ... sweep. Yet he also talks sombrely of the Nacs's strict accreditation scheme, the NVQ in chimney engineering ...

A Victorian chimney sweep has become the youngest person to be honoured with a blue plaque. George Brewster died at the age of 11 in 1875 after being forced to enter a chimney where he became stuck.