W ell, almost. John Woodall (#0425H) sent us a few items of interest recently.

Firstly, some photos of a retaining wall in his garden at Inverness made from retired telegraph poles.  He says the poles came from Pocklington in East Yorkshire, and were used for a Pole Barn in Regent Street before they ended up in his wall 391 miles further north.  The barn housed electrical firms' vans apparently. 

Now, we're always interested in absolutely anything telegraph pole related here, but John sent us these because he thought we'd be particularly interested in the markings thereon.  We've zoomed and scanned and photo-enhanced these as best we can and the results are hereabout. Do please click on each photo for the fuller-sized version.

Due to the inadequacies of photographing something so fine as telegraph pole hieroglyphics, John kindly sketched the markings off this first one.

Lost in the creosote and dare I say, weeds, is another GPO stamp.  This one would seem to read GPO 1931.

W ere they a Civil Servant or Lollipop lady, then these poles would certainly have received a CBE or similar award by now. A long and useful working life propping up telephone wires in E. Yorkshire. Semi-retirement supporting the roof of a shed in the same town. And today still grafting at holding back soil as part of a wall up there in Inverness.  Somebody should write to the Queen.

Not finished there though.  John was busy dismantling an old government issue George VI table (as you do) and tucked at the back of a drawer he found a GPO work-docket for erecting a pole and wires in Tomnahurich Street, Inverness dated 1948.

I wonder if the job ever got done. Or did it, like so many work requests which land on my own desk, slip to the back of the drawer where they lie, forever undone.