Warm congratulations to the good readers of Current Archaeology magazine who recently unearthed us during an excavation of page 50 of their January issue #298. Did you see what I did there? It’s that kind of clever stuff that wins awards and stuff. I think. Anyway, now you’re all here…
It may be a surprise to some but there is something of a cross-over between those erudite readers of Current Archaeology and the perusers of our own sage pages. We regularly feature people who dig stuff up. Look at the Poulton & Fylde railway lot for example. Or Claire Pendrous and her Openreach telegraph pole graveyard rummagings.
Ours is an interest that has it’s feet firmly in the past anyway – the telegraph, as a means of communication blossomed out of Victoriana through the 20th century to slide over the dying edge of a bell-curve into the internet era. We appreciators of telegraph pole aesthetics are surely closet harkers to a bygone age. Does that not sound like an archaeologist anyway? Ok, they do get to find the odd priceless treasure trove during their digs, whereas the most we might find is a cracked LNER Cordeaux worth precisely zero. But at least we don’t get cursed by Tutankhamun all that often.
Anyway, welcome to the whole lot of you. But in particular to C.A. reader Vicky Norman. She tells us that she was travelling on the “Rocky Mountaineer” from Jasper to Vancouver in 2012 and she noticed that the telegraph poles alongside the railway were in a great state of dilapidation which prompted her to write the following poem. For this we are grateful. Alas the photo accompaniment is somewhat out of focus but it does have a telegraph pole in it, and does set the scene nicely.
Communication years ago relied on wire and glass.
The sentinels of yesteryear look sad as they collapse
with leaning bodies, broken arms and wires askew and snapped.
Overgrown with woodland green and snow in winter’s grip
They disappear from human gaze like ancient monoliths.
The poles being wood have had their day but as they fall and die
Return to earth which nurtured them as spruce and stalwart pine
Theres no room left for brave old posts which helped the country grow
and now the fibre optic wires are carried down below.
Vicky Norman
