Karen Hughes, member #1107, sent us these pics to share with our fellow appreciators of all things tall, wooden, sticky-uppy and with wires coming out of the top. These are from where Karen lives in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. They are indeed very appreciable.
There’s clearly a bit of everything going on with these poles: leccy, phone and street lamps. No missing cat posters though. That is the only thing that could top it. Lovely rural lane that just invites perambulation. The name Forest of Dean, though… is that possessive? As in Dean’s Forest, the Pullover of Martin kind of thing? We should be told, made to do some research. Or something.
Blimey these don’t half come around quick. As I write, just two more sleeps until that wonderful day of appreciating those delightful tall wooden, sticky-uppy things that punctuate our landscape, disappear off into perspective infinity o’er hill and dale and which stand silent and sentinel over us all.
To help you celebrate this great day (coincidentally, miniature golf appreciation day also) we’ve decided to upload a gallery of some of our favourite poles of the last few years. Scroll, enjoy, appreciate.
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).
Agent #1015* spent his entire working life building his company providing bitumen surfacing solutions for vehicle storage yards. But when Aaron Aardvark’s Tarmac Carparks closed in June last year Aaron took to telegraph pole spotting to fill the massive void in his life.
Here is his latest submission. This busy half pole with footpath sign and dual wide angle mirrors and obligatory missing cat poster is somewhere in Gwynedd, Plaid Cymru. Aaron tells us he aims to progress to whole poles very soon and hopes to find one with cross arms too. Good luck with that.
A close up of the aforementioned convex mirror reveals Aaron replete with camera and sidekick Shaaron and Terry Tesco driving a van at breakneck speed behind them.
*I’ve got your tystysgrif Cymraeg here Aaron. I haven’t forgotten.
Alan Brown wrote to us this week from Teignmouth in Devon. Firstly, he congratulated me on a “gripping programme on Radio Wales on Saturday morning”. This raises two questions: what the hell are you doing listening to Radio Wales all the way from Devon? But then I looked and it’s actually not that far – if you’re a crow. And secondly, the use of the word “gripping” to describe my interview with Oliver Hides at 7:15am, which is effectively the middle of the night – the only thing I might grip at that time on a Saturday morning is the top of the cistern to steady my aim as I relieve nocturnal pressure thus facilitating a further hour or so in slumberland.
Anyway, Alan’s felicitations were merely a polite opener to an email extolling the virtues of a telegraph pole he had found in the run down (his words) left-hand side Dawlish road as it approaches Teignmouth.
This pole, he points out: * carries a large number of phone lines * carries 3-phase power * supports a street light * supports a road sign * has Welsh included in one of it’s notices.
“What a performer” he rightly concludes and yes, it did indeed brighten our day. Not so much that I may choose to holiday there, or even ever consider a traverse of the A379. But having a bit of God’s own language on its sign puts this pole right up there with some of our favourites. What Alan neglected to mention was that this pole also has sea views. Yes, really, see pic #1
#1 World’s busiest pole… for now? …
Pergyl of Marwolaeth here, watch out, falling Z’s.
Our Pole-of-the-Month Select committee had already convened and adjourned having chosen the winner for November (see previous post) when the image you see below landed on our metaphorical doormat.
This is Telegraph Pole Appreciation defined in a single photograph. It was taken at sunrise by Hazel Long from Brighouse in West Yorkshire. In a world where the telegraph/telephone hadn’t ever been invented this would just be a photo of a dawn sky, grading from orange to purple, and that’s it. Just let that sink in for a minute.
Hazel had to get up very early in the day to capture this pole in its true glory. Now, dawn is a time of day I tend to avoid. Statistically, you see, it is a time when one is much more likely to get shot. Especially if, like me, you err on the side of the lily-livered and if your fight or flight instinct leans heavily towards flight.
Anyway, this gloriously simple pole stands silently sentinel over the good citizens of Brighouse. Stoically it distributes essential electromagnetically modulated signals into the nearby homes: a phone call to Barbara at No. 14, perhaps, whereby she hears that Maxine from the hairdresser’s boyfriend has buggered off with her from the White Lion; Or maybe an essential youtube educational video squeezed down the line to Derek at No. 3 showing a load of cats knocking things off shelves. Or crucially, Wendy at the end of the street just clicking the Buy Now button on this very website to purchase a copy of our wonderful tome “Telegraph Pole Appreciation for Beginners“. It’s the reason the internet was invented.
For sure I have to earn my six figure salary* here at Telegraph Pole Towers. I put in a full shift every day sifting through endless internet cat videos and films about Class 37 locos. That is until Mrs TPAS reminds me that I’m meant to be looking at telegraph pole stuff. Then there’s the correspondence. Often involving extended exchanges such as that which followed recently with Mazzy from S. Gloucestershire.
Being one of those people who notice things, Mazzy was thrilled to find her streets at Winterbourne Down had a run of metal poles adorned with finials – these, to the uninitiated are the pickelhaube ornamental spikes at the topmost pointy end. Encouraged by our polite request not to send in such crap photos she came back with those you see below which are more befitting our reader’s discerning eyes. It turns out that Mazzy keeps an unhealthy number of photos of telegraph and other poles.
The latter pole – the one that looks like a hollow flag – is my favourite. This is a particularly rare find which I believe are used to carry wires past and over obstacles. They may also help in taking out a degree or two of bend in the wires. Bent electric has lower retail value than that which arrives in a straight line apparently. I didn’t know that until recently.
Anyway, I got to thinking what an exotic name is Mazzy. Two Z’s indeed. Subtract one of those and you have Mazy – which is how, in days of yore, my football skills were described. Not that I was dribbling around defenders to slam in the winner from 25 yards – more like mazy runs by way of avoiding a stinging slap on the thigh from a cold and muddy ball. Scoring winners was what other players did.
Back to Mazzy. She’s a bit shy about her own writing prowess. She suggests that the intersection between telegraph pole enthusiasts and short fiction fans is fairly modest. I disagree. She’s won awards and things. The most I ever won was a British Sausage Time watch in a raffle in the Evening Leader 30 years ago. She can be found at unfurling.net. And if that doesn’t encourage her to update it more often I don’t know what will ;-
*In the interest of transparency, the 6 figure salary to which I refer is £000,000. After deductions.
Blimey, these September 21st’s don’t half come round quick. The nights are drawing in. Autumn equinox but one day away, and with the leaves just starting to thin out on the trees, this could be a time for melancholy. Except, that you can now see the telegraph poles that bit easier at this time of year, of course. So why not get out there and really appreciate something tall, wooden, sticky-uppy with wires all coming out the top.
As usual, TPAS staff, and invited telegraph dignitaries will make our way to Polehenge (Ceredigion) for our dawn to dusk vigil. Artist’s impression here of last year’s event by Benny, aka tub-thumping garden shed builder, friend of this society, member #0666 Dave Bennett.
And what about this to warm the cockles of a pole connoisseur’s heart this Appreciation Day – a drawing by Mid Wales artist Carolyn Blake, aka TPAS member #0960 www.carolynblake.co.uk. This piece depicts a S. Wales valleys scene and a particularly fine twin pole with transformer. I love this. She really “gets” telegraph poles and says she wears her [TPAS] badge with pride.
Venerable and esteemed Honorary Technical Adviser*1 to our most sage of societies, Sir Keith S**** has a penchant for telegraph pole butts. This, a result of his entire adult career spent touring the vast vertical forests of the Baltic states and Soviet east Europe inspecting and selecting swathes of trees for a future role as British telegraph poles. Once cut down, they would have their base (butt) stamped with his initials (K.S) and stacked awaiting shipment. To this day, Sir Keith, spends his retirement days wandering the fields and byways of Cheshire and Greater Manchester searching for just one example of his initials on a butt somewhere. Meanwhile, he found this amazing 32ft National Telephone Co.*2 pole lying in a park in Cheadle.
“…Goodness knows how long it has lain there, I could not find any scribing on it as that area was completely rotted away.It has, near the butt, marks made with a scribe knife XXII , which would have been put on in the forest, a bit odd as this would indicate a length of 22 ft. But the butt stamps indicate 32 ft.”
*1Adviser vs Advisor. I get hung up on things like this. Ever conscious of creeping Americanisms into our everyday (the word Movie is banned in TPAS Towers and a bum is never a butt) I had to look up to see if there was a more Britishy way of spelling this. In the end though I got confused and went with Adviser.
*3. I know, I know… Our motto is “Tall, wooden, sticky-uppy with wires coming out the top” and a pole that is lying down can hardly be tall can it? It’s long, not tall. BUT. This is Keith S**** H.T.A. T.P.A.S. who sent us this and on his new-fangled 21st century telephone and all. Who’d have thought that one day we’ll all be sending photographs through the ether via a fax machine that we keep in our pocket?
I’ve always been of the opinion that being late is the sincerest form of rudeness. I feel something the same about answering emails. If someone takes the trouble to write then I feel this deep catholic guilt to reply with some alacrity. Sometimes, though, the tousle between good and evil within me can result in a few months passing between inbox and outbox.
Exacerbation insomuch as many correspondents to TPAS Towers seem to imagine I’m some sage old telegraph engineer with hands tarred with creosote splinters and the answer to every technical/positional problem there ever was with a telegraph pole. And I confess I’m finding it hard to raise enthusiasm to enquiries about boundary disputes, pigeon poo, and other such positional conundra. I’m loathe to make it any clearer on the website header that I’m simply an excitable enthusiast from Wales who just likes the shape of telegraph poles and that we are in no way affiliated to Openreach technical division. Oh the shame of sending out a stock reply like some House of Commons MP replying to a moaning constituent. But emails about broken phones, wires hanging down or engineers trampling your roses whilst servicing a telephone pole in your garden may now be met with this or similar reply:
Dear enquirer, Many thanks for your email. Alas, I’m probably not the best person to ask. Ultimately, you see, we are just air-heads who appreciate the finer aesthetic qualities of telegraph poles. The lines they make as they dance their way o’er an undulating landscape into perspective infinity. And fluffy stuff like that. Rules, regulations, maxima and minima, rights and wrongs are things that happen to other people I’m afraid. You can contact Openreach via an online form at www.openreach.com. They don’t seem to have a phone number.
If you want to get my attention however, send me lovely pictures of telegraph poles that I can properly appreciate and share joyfully with our fellow connoisseurs. Pictures like this one from Robert Watson from the calm locked streets of Dorking RH4.
Moonlit DP in darkest Dorking, RH4 (photo: Robert Watson)
