Sir Benjamin Spoon BEM – Page 6 – The Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society

31 Aug 2022

Northumberland

posted in: Country poles, Electricity Poles, Gorgeousness, Photos |

We’re indebted to Simon Rushton for sending us the photos you see here. Simon is a fellow enthusiast and appreciator of interesting man-made shapes in the landscape. He tells us: “…Old electrical overhead equipment, Green Rigg towards Lesbury Northumberland. No idea what it is except the poles have the label Cobra 1972 and a Newcastle upon Tyne electrical company enamel sign part way up the pole.”

“Love the side saddle ‘3 on the side’ x2 corner pole insulators as they look like the giant Hollyhocks currently outside our kitchen window.“

Now, I know they’re power poles but if you’ve been following this society’s sage wisdom as long as I’ve been writing it, you’ll know that we don’t differentiate between power & telegraph poles. For the avoidance of doubt our mantra is and always will be: “If it’s tall, wooden, sticky-uppy, and got wires coming out of the top then we appreciate it” And these poles are just gorgeous. Thanks Simon.

A power pole at Green Rigg towards Lesbury Northumberland

Side view of A power pole at Green Rigg towards Lesbury Northumberland

27 Jun 2022

A Road Trip to 612Khz Medium Wave

posted in: Appreciating, Country poles, Electricity Poles, Foreign ones, Found Poles, Photos, Slideshow, Telegraph Poles |

VIntage radio dial showing Athlone radio station

I have a lifelong fascination with radio. You know: vintage stuff, crystal sets, valves, aerials strung like washing lines and all that. And romantic sounding radio stations. Earlier this month Mrs TPAS and I took a different route home from visiting dislocated family in the top left hand corner of Ireland and drove all the way down the west coast, cutting across the middle to catch our ferry from Rosslare back to Fishguard. I ensured that our journey took in the town of Athlone smack bang in the middle of Ireland and at the extreme right hand edge of the MW dial on my old Roberts R500. Athlone the town has much going for it but alas Athlone 612Khz no longer transmits. Those of a nerdic disposition may like to check out the Radio Telefis Eireann 100kw broadcasting equipment page I found in the silt at the bottom of the internet.

Meanwhile sit back and enjoy the rest of our telegraphic journey south and eastwards, Rosslare bound.

Next year we plan to visit Hilversum I and also try to take in Hilversum II (which must surely be nearby).

22 May 2022

Newport has lots going for it.

posted in: fabled poles, Found Poles, Railway poles, Telegraph Poles, Vintage |

I’m sure…

Newport is in Wales. Just. It’s in Wales about as much as Berwick upon Tweed is in England. So close to “them” that “they” may as well have it. I am of the previously unshared opinion that the rest of wales is quietly ambivalent about ownership of this particular corner.

What do I know about Newport?

Well, I became intimate with the roundabout beneath junction 24 of the M4 during a stalled hitch-hike home back in my army days – specifically where the A449 branches north; the fans of Newport County football club could be friendlier (one savage purple-jumper wearing Newport fan has stayed long in the memory of my home town’s fans); AND nobody ever chose Newport as a holiday destination – except when confusing it with Newport, Pembs.

So, given the feeling in the rest of Cymru it was with some trepidation that long-term correspondent to these pages MartYn Fielder (a son of Abergavenny) had to visit the town with his mother for a medical appointment. He need not have worried. It was while waiting for the NHS to do its thing that MartYn followed his Indiana Jones urges and explored an old railway track bed in Malpas just to the north of the town. I’ll let his words describe his adventure:

“I came across the noble form of an old pole, forlorn in the splendour of its decaying grandeur. The pole is incredibly pock-marked, as though it’s been attacked by giant woodworm, and there are no identifying markers. It is also entirely alone – having walked all the way to the point where the old railway has been obliterated by the link road between the A4042 and the A4051 in one direction, and then followed it in the other direction where it has been transformed into a tarmac footpath wending its way through endless housing estates, I can confidently state that this is the only remaining telegraph pole on this stretch of the old Eastern Valley Line of the Monmouthshire Rail and Canal Company (1852) which closed in 1963. This splendid solitary specimen stands as a witness to a century of spectacular growth and slow decline in the industrial heartland of South Wales. A humbling thought.”

So there we have it. Newport, Gwent, still in Wales, has Big Mac’s Wholly Soul Band and a single old and isolated, redundant and woodpeckered multi-arm telegraph pole. The word “Yay!” comes to mind. Put Newport on my holiday list. Summer 2074 should do it.

Anyway, I looked it up recently, MartYn and I have been exchanging telegraph pole related missives for more than ten years now. He is this close ” to getting on my Christmas card list.

An old 6 armed pole with no wires and scant few insulators stands alone above a bush.

12 Apr 2022

Abrasion, Ursine Situpons and Reg, not from Mombassa

posted in: Art, Country poles, Gorgeousness, Literature, Nothing to do with Telegraph Poles, Submissions, Telegraph Poles |

The Bond index is used as a measure of the relative abrasivity of different rock materials. It is not this index that I have been measuring my relative roughness against this week, however. Since Tuesday last, I have been as under-the-weather as Tomasz Schafernaker’s hat. A viral type lurgy that refuses to test positive as covid – which would give me full there-there-there benefits – but instead just makes me thoroughly fed up. Yesterday I peaked at 3.6 on the Bears Arse index. For reference a score of 1.0 on this scale might cover a heavily hungover Sunday morning i.e. as rough as a bear’s arse. My score of 3.6 bears’ arses is really unwell and I think ought to involve cards, Lucozade and the children surrounding my bedside asking me to sign things. Quickly.

So it was with this glumness that I sought spiritual embrocation which, as always, led me back to my TPAS inbox. Here an email from Chris O’Doherty, aka Reg Mombassa, bristling with quirky telegraph pole related art and poetry did much to bring my roughness score back below three bears’ bottoms. Still poorly mind you.

Reg Mombassa is an Australian based artist and musician who you may better know from his band “Mental as Anything” or “Dog Trumpet“. And his pop artwork oozes out of the Ozzie cultural landscape like Warholian*¹ wallpaper. Reg clearly has a thing about telegraph poles, and we have permission to reproduce the images you see here. Ditto the poem (The Telegraph Pole) that he sent in via Joel Schuberg.

You can get drawn into websites like reg-mombassa.com whether for the music, the art, the laconic wit or for the feeling of “so that’s where I know that from” and frankly, it’s what the internet was made for. This has been the only thing to break me away from my cat-videos in a long while. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Reg Mombassa:

A quirky power pole pen and ink art by Reg Mombassa. — Tree of Man by Reg Mombassa

“Tree of Man” is an etching edition is part of the The British Museum’s permanent art collection. by Reg Mombassa — Tree of Man by Reg Mombassa

The second image above entitled “Tree of Man” is an etching edition and is part of the The British Museum’s permanent art collection. Reg’s website is set up to disallow any kind of cut and paste. Clever, but to read Reg’s latest poemn (as promised above) entitled “The Telegraph Pole” you’ll have to click the title there.

*¹. First time I’ve ever used the term Warholian. I hope Reg isn’t offended by the comparison. Sorry if you are Reg, but I so wanted to use the word Warholian*².

*² Now 3 times

23 Mar 2022

Cold war turns hot. In Denbighshire

posted in: Big Poles, Country poles, Nothing to do with Telegraph Poles, Villainous behaviour, Vintage |

Finding the mood to conjure up some whimsical guffery – as is my wont and forte – has been difficult of late. Given the rather nasty goings-on in the area north of the Black Sea. I’ve doom-scrolled the news posts until I can’t sleep any more and refreshed the headlines on my browser to a standstill. All the time hoping for some cessation of hostilities.. I’ve seen the film “Threads” for goodness’ sake. And a (much) younger me – a mere lance corporal*¹ – was once responsible for patrolling a tiny stretch of our side of the rusting iron curtain as the cold war simmered and seethed between the two Germanys.

This talk of hostility brings me to this photograph of a fine, wide, four armed vintage pole just south of Ruthin in N. Wales This pole, you may remember, was one of those discussed in our fabulously famous film “Telegraph Poles on the B5105“. Mrs TPAS was camerawoman that day and after we’d finished filming this particular pole we walked back up the lane opposite to our car. Therein we were accosted by an irate lady who lived along said thoroughfare and considered our car’s position as a violation of her right to exist as a human being. My wife – practised in these things – did all the arguing for our team: that we were on a public right of way; that we were parked in a layby; that we were 300 yards beyond the end of her garden and jurisdiction. Mrs Angry was having none of it and harangued to the point of amusement for some ten minutes or more. I was carrying the camera at the time and had sneakily pressed the record button as her first salvos of red-faced vitriol rained in upon us. A ceasefire was only called when the husband of the house called his wife off us and we (mentally) signed a peace accord to the extent that we would never film there again. My ears ring to this very day.

I still have the ten minutes of footage if Mr Spielberg/Coppola/Tarantino might like to dramatise the whole conflagration.

A wide, four armed telegraph pole with 18 insulators stands tall amongst the trees on the side of the B5105 in Denbighshire. Two cars passing below.

*¹ Should, by rights, have held the rank of Captain only I filled in the wrong form at the recruitment office.

20 Feb 2022

Eunice, Serendipity & people named Jim

posted in: Broken Poles, Country poles, Insulators |

As I write, storm Franklin is thrashing around outside trying to outdo it’s older siblings Dudley and Eunice. The latter came through here two days ago showing 969 millibars (hectopascals) and scared the life out of me and the ridge tiles of my house. Said storm proceeded to wrestle to the ground a 250 year old lime tree in the field across the lane. That this tree has significance to us is beyond the remit of this post/page/website. The tree also fell onto a rusting dutch barn flattening what was left from a storm 3 years ago into a mangle of corrugated rust and retired and rotted telegraph poles.

Curiosity took me out there to inspect the damage. The tree was rotten mostly through and clearly wan’t long for this world anyway, wind or no wind. I was just about to retrieve a branch or two for the home hearth when I spotted a fully intact insulator lying on the top of the grass as though it had been left there just minutes before for me to find. Then I found two more, slightly more concealed. Much excited rationalising led me to conclude that they were somehow wedged into the tree as a byproduct when the poles were used to make the now planate barn. Serendipity* that Eunice should have lead me to them.

I thought of the title of this post way before I started writing anything. I felt sure that if I just kept writing I could think of some connection between someone called Jim and the happenstance of me finding some old insulators. Like you now, I realise this far into the post that it’s just not going to happen. I can’t think of any association. At all. Try as I might. But I’ve written the heading now and I’m not the sort of person to go back and change it. So cheers, to the Jims of this world. And to one in particular 😉 May you be Lucky Jim.

* not for the lime tree.

A fallen lime tree showing huge fracture to trunk and rotted interior. Rusted dutch barn just beyond.

As I found the standard white insulator almost on the surface of the field.

31 Jan 2022

Country Life and a virtuoso trumpet solo

posted in: Country poles, Found Poles, Gorgeousness, GPO, Submissions, Vintage |

Amongst the heavily thumbed magazines to be found in the waiting room at my rural GP surgery was always at least one copy of Country Life. This magazine, to me, represented the completely unobtainable. It featured houses the likes of which I would never afford. There were nuptial celebrations that clearly weren’t in the local working men’s club and a heady mix of horse-riding features, fine art sales and articles about Rolls Royce. Unobtainable – like that girl in the sixth form to my fourth year hormone rush.

How elevated must I feel now to find myself within it’s esteemed pages. 19th January issue. Hardly tomorrow’s chip paper. This serendipitous chain of events continued with my receiving a letter from Adrian Holmes from Barnes which is so glowing in praise and so beautifully written that I post it here verbatim:

Dear Martin –

Your book (which I saw featured in Country Life) is an absolute delight – by turns daft, erudite and laugh-out-loud funny. Thank you for the pleasure it gave me.

As a mark of my appreciation, here’s a photo I took while on holiday in Scotland in July 2005. The stretch of water in the distance is Upper Loch Torridon.

Regrettably, Google Streetview reveals the inevitable has happened – that jaunty line of beautifully weathered poles has since danced its way into oblivion.

Now in its place there’s just a drab line of freshly creosoted, boringly vertical spindles (there’s no other term), carrying one measly multicore cable.

Actually, I tell a lie: by some miracle, original pole no. 3 in the photo is still hanging on in there. Yay!

Best wishes,
Adrian Holmes
Barnes
London

I confess to a tear upon reading Adrian’s words, and then a second tear as my heart swelled with this breathtaking view from Scotland.

A run of three armed telegraph poles alongside a rural lane in Upper Loch Torridon with loch in the middle distance and mountains in background

The full article from Country Life can be found right here. Country Living, 19th January

7 Dec 2021

The GOOD, the NOT BAD & the WHAT FRESH HELL IS THIS?

posted in: Electricity Poles, Gorgeousness, GPO, Metal Poles, Photos, Telegraph Poles, Villainous behaviour |

TPAS staff retired the short distance to the seaside this week. Overdue R&R away from the rubble and brick dust that permeates our regular inland HQ. Newport (Trefdraeth) sits aside the mouth of the River Nevern (Afon Nyfer) in Pembrokeshire and is as charmingly gentrified as you can get in Wales. Think Kensington-on-Sea. The busily compact commercial centre is the ideal place to stock up on cinnamon candles, scented snowmen and gift-wrapped logs. And for the traditional gasp of “how much?” try ordering a pint and a small glass of house red in one of the hostelries.

Don’t get me started on the grand replacement of local populace by wealthy incomers, the high pampered dog to human ratio or the almost complete erosion of the Welsh language in the area. I said don’t get me started ! Think Cornwall and the Lake District but yn Cymraeg.

Anyway, not one to waste time not looking at telegraph poles here are my findings, pre-sorted, for your convenience into appropriate categories. Decide for yourself which is which.

Nice little DP - see closeup of the gubbins. — Note to self: get a better camera.

Business end of a DP in Newport. Ring and 4 screwtop insulators — Note to self: get a better camera.

24 Nov 2021

Erection

posted in: Big Poles, Country poles, Engineers, GPO, Hardware, New Poles, Telegraph Poles, Vintage |

I came this ‘ ‘ close to deleting an email I received this week with the subject line as above. I used to receive many such messages. Often accompanied by words like dysfunction, failure, problems etc. All the while extolling the virtues of some wonder pills guaranteed to make my wife happy. It’s well known in this household that a long trawl around a garden centre is far more likely to lighten Mrs TPAS’ countenance than anything I could swallow. I think. I hope!

Anyway, I have the curiosity of a small, hungry cat called Brian, and I noticed that this particular email also had a photo attached. So it is by the skin of all our teeth that I present to you this delicious telegraph pole courtesy of Euros Jones.

Euros is not one to waste words and the photo came with the simple caption:

“Went through Aberangell last week and saw this pole being replaced.”

Aberangell is a village deep within the stunning gorgeousness of the Dovey hills, N.E. of Machynlleth. And just think what a coup it would have been had we also a photo of this old pole coming down and the new one going up as witnessed, alas uncaptured, by Euros. If I won the lottery I suppose I could always get them to re-enact it just for my not-at-all-obsessive benefit.

Anyway, I doff my cap firmly in Euros’ direction. He saw a pole being replaced and somehow managed to put his hands on the photo of it going up in the first place decades ago. I certainly couldn’t do that. And I don’t know many who could. Actually, I say I doff my cap, but truth is, the only headwear I ever wear is an Aberystwyth Town FC bobble hat. So next time I’m at the footy Euros, it’ll get doffed your way.

Black and white photo of a street scene in Aberangell, mid Wales, showing a GPO team putting up a four crossarm pole with great effort.

13 Nov 2021

Navigation The TElegraph Pole Way

posted in: fabled poles, History, Literature, Oddities |

Member #1030 John Causer wrote to let us know of:
(a) His complete suffusion with pride at having obtained entry into our most august of societies, and
(b) A genuine telegraph pole related anecdote which we reproduce below. It came from from “Surely You’re Joking Mr Feynman” the autobiography of Richard P Feynman (1918-1988), the American Nobel laureate theoretical physicist.

Oh, Feynman – quantum electrodynamics, superfluidity, path-integral-formulation – that Richard Feynman. Yes him.

Thank you John #1030, a small red star has been placed next to your name in the TPAS register of members, which I keep in a little box in the third drawer down in my desk. Keep up the good work.

PS. John also added: “The first sentence needs some parsing. Read as ‘I entered MIT and was accepted for the Pi Lambda Delta fraternity, which had various initiation tests’ “. What?