Submissions

8 Jul 2024

Aurora Telegraphpolealis

posted in: Appreciating, Gorgeousness, New Poles, Submissions, Telegraph Poles |

The February 2023 Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society Calendar page. Showing the month and a photo of a silhouetted DP taken against a dawn orange sky.

Who could ever forget February 2023? For it was after that last day of a cold dark and windy January that most of us flipped our TPAS Calendar over to a new month revealing Hazel Long’s magnificent dawn pole (above) – bringing renewed joy and hope into the hearts of this telegraph pole appreciating nation. Or something like that.

Well, Hazel has moved house. Not that far from the original Brighouse photo – and still within Yorkshire – where they play cricket, throw rocks at Lancastrians and make tea. To a place called Scapegoat Hill to join the 1,246 other inhabitants who all came out to marvel at the new pole (right). Said pole is so new it hasn’t been wired up to anything yet. Once connected it will doubtless allow residents to add Yorkshire Tea , Terry’s Chocolate Oranges and Henderson’s Relish to their weekly online grocery order.

Hazel tells us she likes a spartan life and to be in bed by 8pm and so missed the aurora borealis northern light show that not so long ago blessed our skies. Luckily, son James was still up and captured the DP of magnificence you see below. I presume this too was in Yorkshire. Actually, it looks like the old place. Anyway, this has all prompted me to do some research on a county I’ve only ever visited once: Puddings of course. Those flat, soggy, slightly burnt things that people have with their sunday dinner. They’re from Yorkshire. The world’s yappiest dog breed comes from Yorkshire too. These handbag sized mutts have yapped their way under the skin of many a quiet-loving neighbour. Seth Armstrong was the county’s most famous beer drinker and supped more than 3,750 pints of ale during his tenure at the bar of the Woolpack Inn, Emmerdale, between 1978 and 2004. Emmerdale, formerly Emmerdale Farm, now regularly competes with Coronation Street for the most train crashes and aviation disasters in a half-hour light drama series.

A DP pole silhouetted in front of a colourful aurora sky.

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

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

10 Mar 2021

An Exhibition of Pole Photos by Member #0985H

posted in: Big Poles, Broken Poles, dropwires, Found Poles, Oddities, Slideshow, Submissions, Telegraph Poles |

Welcome to the TPAS virtual gallery. Wayne Firth is an honorary member of this society. He didn’t become such via the usual vulgarity of a cash donation delivered personally to my doorstep. Nor did he offer me a non-executive seat at some dubious investment company. And he didn’t marry my sister either.*¹ Whilst these are all perfectly valid means of suffixing your membership with the esteemed “H”, Wayne went one better and used his position within the echelons of Openreach to access photos of poles of great interest. These he then sent to us under plain cover.

I’ve been hanging on to these for a while with the intention of spreading them out over a year. Truth is, my email inbox stretches off for over a mile now and so if I left it any longer then they may be lost to the silt at the bottom. (Apologies to those still waiting a reply from me for anything at all – don’t lose hope).

Anyway, thanks to Wayne #0985H for all these fabulous pole pics. Click a pic for full sized gallery.

*¹ All are also valid, and oft used, means of acquiring peerage and/or PPE contracts.

_{PS the descriptive captions whilst seemingly blooming obvious… to the sighted, are from the alt text which we include with each image so as not to exclude so to speak…}

The view from the top of a BT pole. A suburban street. Plus some bird poo very much in evidence.

A telegraph pole burning from top to bottom in a suburban street.

18 Mar 2020

Motion blurred Aussie Poles

posted in: Country poles, Foreign ones, Gorgeousness, Photos, Railway poles, Submissions |

Rick Howell (#0879) and Mrs Howell (hereafter known as Mrs H) voyaged to foreign parts recently – actually, it was last November. Rick’s email got lost in the gloop at the bottom of my inbox along with a fragment of biscuit, a burst ink cartridge and an email from a Nigerian prince. Anyway, geologically, November is almost yesterday, and cosmologically it’s instantaneous. So, right this second, Rick & Mrs H were speeding south aboard the Sydney to Melbourne express (40mph max he says) when he spotted these poles whizzing by.

Though he describes the photographic results as patchy, we have to remember he was incredibly excited at the sight of these multi-armed, fully strung, highly insulated telegraphic beauties all the while juggling the complexities of taking pics on a tablet whilst wincing at the incoming tuts from Mrs H sat alongside. She was of the opinion that he should stop taking telegraph pole photos and instead concentrate on the distressed and singed koalas and other wildlife – none of which are visible from this particular train window*¹. Personally, I would have pulled the communication chord for a better look.

Rick valiantly persevered and the results of his efforts on our behalf you can see below.

“You see, much of the 600 miles had TPs – with wires!! Fair dinkum’ ” he reckons.

*¹Look carefully at picture #1 and you can just see the Australian fires starting. So Mrs H is either a soothsayer or went off on one a bit early doors. We may never know.

15 Nov 2019

Ye Olde Telegraph Apparatusii

posted in: Hardware, History, Submissions, Vintage |

This website is normally dedicated to telegraph poles with the emphasis on *poles* - tall wooden sticky-uppy things with wires all coming out of the top. But you cannot be obsessive about these things without at least wondering what it's all for:
Mostly used as a support medium for Slimming World notices these days, telegraph poles once bristled with crossarms which carried sparky wires conveying messages charged with electromagnetic pulses in the form of morse code. And with all that went enormously varied hardware and a long and rich history.
A venn diagram of telegraph pole nuts (ahem!) and and telecommunication historians would surely have considerable overlap.
The photos you see below are from the collection of Marcos Raijer from N. Florida, USA. Now retired, he spent 40 years collecting this stuff and I'm told that his is a live telegraphic post that connects two morse stations. His plans are to demonstrate telegraphs to physics students. This is a wonderful collection of some gorgeous apparatus. Well worthy of a bus trip. Thanks for sharing with fellow enthusiasts Marcos.
For a more fuller story about the history of the telegraph I recommend students of Telegraphpoleology consult my favourite tome on the subject "The Victorian Internet" by Tom Standage or they may also like to read the online book "Distant Writing" or our own rather less well informed wonky-table-leveller "Telegraph Pole Appreciation for Beginners".

19 Aug 2019

Openreach employee of the month

posted in: Country poles, Engineers, Oddities, Submissions, Telegraph Poles, Things on poles |

Normally this award would be given to the Openreach employee who most recently fixed my phone line or got my internet going again. But for August 2019 a TPAS Order of Merit (see right) has been specially minted for us to give to Wayne Firth. Wayne used to be a ringer-of-wood and laddersman trapeze artist in the alfresco world of telegraph pole inspecting. Now, though, his hands are clean and splinter-free, his collar only slightly grubby and his life a whirl of acetate overheads and powerpoint system crashes in the murky world of the office interior as he trains up tomorrow's pole rattlers.

Wayne kindly sent us the collection of photos of poles, various, that you see below. 3 pics of extremely hirsute poles, 4 photos of pole stacks - where all the different types of pole are laid out in their categories before being selected for installation and finally a pole/tree hybrid that he found out on his rounds. This is a tree that is growing completely around the pole itself.

One final thing. Wayne didn't say where he was from, but judging by the fact that every one of these photos it seems to be soaking wet from recent rain I would say he must be from Blaenau Ffestiniog.

8 Jan 2019

Visual Treats

posted in: Country poles, Found Poles, Photos, Submissions |

Yes, Visual Treats - that was the subject of an email that landed on our metaphorical doormat recently. Rick Howell from Exeter tells us that he has long been interested in those marvellous bits of British engineering - Cornish beam engines, gasworks, scraps of railway metallica, Austin Allegro. And he says there's a small but subversive cell among his circle of friends who are interested in telegraph poles - or actually, anything that harks back to a time when we did things properly in this country. He writes:

" ...having spotted a couple of TPs with insulators in my area of Devon still in use - kind of - I thought I'd check out whether a website existed for the delectation of those people who admire these things. And there is! So, since I have taken one or two pics pics of some examples I've have attached same. They're in a sort of order so here goes:

1, 2, 3. This is on the mine footpath that leads from the Warren House inn on Dartmoor to Vitifer Mine; probably last worked in the early part of the 20th century. OS 191.680809 if you like that sort of thing.

4, 5. A road that has been truncated by the '70s-built A361 North Devon link road at Knowstone Inner Moor. The road once connected Knowstone to Rackenford and since abandonment the poles have been left, wires attached to insulators. The poles are on a very exposed site and some are leaning with the prevailing wind. The bike is a Matchless G80 500 from 1948. OS 181.836218

6, 7, 8, 9. Shillingford Abbot, just outside Exeter; 2 poles connected to each other. A new run of poles heads uphill towards Exeter; the b&w picture was taken in about 1965 at the top of the hill looking the other way towards Haldon with it's Belvedere in the background and shows the original pole line. The sound of the recent gales through the wires really prodded my memory of those wires across the hilly Devon lanes. It may be that the pole in pic 6 and 9 was once on the other side of the road with it's strainer but sad to say that (I think?) 2 lads were killed in the late '60s when their Hillman Imp failed to take the corner at the bottom of the hill and hit the pole. OS192.911890"

Rick's final question is "Am I taking this too seriously?" Nope.

25 Oct 2018

The Great Inbox Tidy up, 2018.

posted in: Found Poles, Gorgeousness, Submissions, Telegraph Poles, Vintage |

You know that drawer you have in your kitchen cabinet? – we’ve all got them – the one with a bit of everything in it: a long-run out biro; some postage stamps torn off and saved you said you were going to send to the guide-dogs; an old ticket to a show you mistakenly believe is a souvenir; a ball of used blue-tac wrapped in a bit of greaseproof paper; 4 lengths of different coloured string; a collection of rubber bands the postie dropped on your path; a plastic chip fork; a calculator with a missing #4 key; long since expired raffle ticket to win a meat voucher; a plastic bag containing half-burned birthday candles; an old pre-usb phone connector cable; a blisterpack of paracetamol with just one left in it; some saved paperclips; a sachet of some liquid could be a sauce from a takeaway, or oil for your sewing machine. Either way it’s leaked and gummed all the aforementioned items together. Yes, that drawer.

Well this post is a bit like that. I’ve collected together loads of bits of emails and letters from our avid readers that I didn’t know what to do with before – and the senders thereof probably thinking they sent it into a black hole. So if something you sent us in the last few months isn’t somewhere in this post, then it probably did end up in a black hole. When you see the miscellaneous nature of some of these or the quality of some (not all) of the photos you’ll understand why I wondered what to do with them.

Many thanks to all, as ever, for your kind submissions. It might take us an epoch or two but we get them posted in the end.

Was out on a morning walk with the dogs that we are looking after and walked that little bit further than usual… What a treat!
( I was then looking up whether ‘telegraph pole’ was the correct term…and found your website…and scrolled down to find a picture taken on the railway near Williton in Somerset…where I grew up!)
…I don’t suppose you have a sister site appreciating manhole covers do you??…they are my other penchant!!

Well the email subject says Poles of Le Marche Italy. The words Le and Marche are French. The sky is blue, so it’s not Wales. Carey is from Yahoo if that narrows it down a bit. Carey says it was taken yesterday if that is any help.

To answer your question re Manhole Appreciation… We’re a bunch of feminists here at TPAS – my wife says so – and may well be starting a personhole appreciation society any day now.

I know for a fact David Reynolds is wondering what the hell happened to the email he sent back in August. David, of weather-forecasting fame and avid insulatorist and pole connoisseur attached this photo of a telegraph pole in Smethwick, dated 1885. Now, he took this photo in 2001 so I would say it’s 50/50 whether or not it’s still there. It would be the record holder if it is – as the oldest pole we at TPAS Towers have on record is dated 1893 (p109 Telegraph Pole Appreciation for Beginners, Arenig Press, £5.99)

So if you’re from Smethwick, or are passing through, do check this one out. It should be easy to find – it’s got a brick wall behind it and some green stuff, looks like leaves of some sort.

Actually, right at the bottom of my inbox, and stuck to an elastoplast where some of the backing paper has come off, I find this photo also sent in by Edward Jones. The email is simply titled Old Pole with the caption “I came across this line pole feed from orrell ete*”. (??) In another photo from the same email, I see a ’62 date. So, ahem, I was born before then, so it can’t be old. It CAN’T be old !!

* Erratum: It’s Orrell ATE (Automatic Telephone Exchange – ie there are no ladies plugging wires into circuit boards)

A sign at the entrance to Miley Urban Wildlife Reserve, Scotland

Gary, member #0829, has a penchant for old railway lines. Especially ones with poles extant. Might be of interest, he says. Yes, Gary, definitely.

The remaining section of the Dundee (Ninewells Junction) to Ardler / Alyth Junction finally closed in 1967. Part of the route in Dundee is now a pathway and known as the “Miley”.

Of particular gratification ( to me anyway) is that some effort has been made to explain the railway artifacts still to be found. Including telegraph poles. However I didn’t see any “erectus” with a few lying on the ground.

Ahem! We’ll overlook the use of the term erectus just this once. Scotland seems to have all the best bits of disused railways. I demand a referendum or something.

We’ll catalogue this email from Mr Red under Fringe. Mr Red likes to hunt for OS Bench Marks – those little up-turned crows feet things my prison uniform used to have all over it. Mr Red also likes the use of post scriptum. Three in this particular email. Anyway, re his UTEC placard – I’ve seen these before but can’t remember where. It’s nailed to a telegraph pole so it’s in as far as I’m concerned:

I too found 3 of these cast iron markers in Gloucester, whilst hunting OS Bench Marks. Doubtless there are others. What I have seen a lot of is concrete posts, usually with the same OS style arrow bearing lead characters in a John Bull printing set “style”. ft & in – IMNSHO, would suggest something up or along by that dimension Maybe you would know better than my guess. But up would indicate overhead wires in my imagination. The cast iron variety have the same ft & in thingy and one lurking behind a modern lamppost is definitely Elizabethan (II of this era). Cnr Alvin St & London Rd.

I have seen a website based on Brighton where the webmeister has assumed OSBMs. http://www.buildingopinions.com/2014/12/02/ordnance-survey-bench-marks/
But yes I would like chapter and as many verses on these too. What have you found?

Mr Red
http://benchmarks.mister.red

PS might this JPG show something spurious and unfathomable or something significant?
PPS we have redundant poles along the Stroudwater, one marked dating from 1902 – or what’s left of it.
PPPS Howard Beard, local photo collector, has an image that may date from the installation of poles in Stroud. Wires not visible and maybe not there at the time. He dates it to the opening of the telephone exchange in Russell St.

A quick google of UTEC says “UTEC is a dynamic, forward-thinking and fast-growing organization. It is one of the world’s largest independent survey companies” So there.

G7SLL might sound like it’s a Gloucestershire postcode but it is, in fact a radio ham callsign. And a quick rummage on a well known internet search engine tells us that Gary Peach, G7SLL is a rocket scientist and the inventor of a type of slide rule for measuring the temperature on the moon. I kid you not. This goes some way to explaining the rather eccentric manner of our semi-recent communication which started with him asking if I knew where DP317 was.

[TPAS] No idea where DP317 is. Possibly not too far from DP316, but that’s just a guess.
[G7SLL] now there’s a guess with a high probability of success. But I’ll not put any of my money on it. The GPO were a law unto themselves, thus the “YIT”, ( Youth In Training), may have maid a mistake.
[G7SLL] I could show you a good picture of a Pole, if you can wait for her to come out of goal. Instead I’ll show you a pole instead. Wince I telegraphed that one, “BLUSH” and it is almost outside of my House in Newbury, West Berks, RG14 5NR

{This bit about Nancy Mitford’s knickers censored because Mrs TPAS reads this too}

[G7SLL] Once upon a time the person in the closest house was England’s first champion Lady Jockey, “Betty Richards” daughter of Cliff R, ( not the pop star), niece of Sir Gordon Richards, England’s Champion Jockey, a LOT. What a lovely lady was Betty…. RIP
A line coming directly from DP 317 into this URL ?
Now, why would they label this pole twice; (SEE picture)?
It is plane to see this pole has the sheiks.
Wooden tit make a chump laugh? so don’t monkey with me.
Gary, G7SLL, wins the 2018 prize for the most bonkers email received this year. For all time, actually.

26 Aug 2018

Towering Topsham Telegraph Pole

posted in: Big Poles, Submissions, Vintage |

There was a touch of synchronicity about a couple of emails which crossed my desk here at Telegraph Pole Towers this last week or so*¹. The first from Mike Shephard from Devon;

"Do you have this surviving "big stick" on record? The telephone exchange used to be in the main street of TOPSHAM near EXETER, from 1912 to 1949. First, as a manual exchange, then, later from the 1930s, as an auto DSR exchange in the Exeter numbering group. The automatic exchange moved to a new site in the town around 1949. It is still there.

The D.P. 1 stout pole has no date marking that can be seen. The local museum thinks it may date from WW1 era, because a relative of someone who is still alive was involved in the pole's installation. The pole was once even taller than today. The top part of the pole was cut off where 8-way arms once stood. Other 8-way arms were set below them at right-angles. The cut-out positions of the lower 8-way arms can still be seen intact.

Noteworthy are the terminal blocks, which are accessible at ladder height, without the need to scale the whole pole. Good thinking. The pole was last tested in 2013, and is marked "D" Defective. A giant of a bygone age, towering over the rooftops. And still standing proud after maybe a century ?"

Then, in the exact same geological era came this from Mike Trout, also of Devon;

"I have always understood that my Grandfather Walter Finlay Wilson installed a very tall telegraph pole in Trees Court, a tiny yard behind the then Telephone exchange in Topsham. Dia about 17" & over 60 ft tall. People have wondered ever since how it was got into the courtyard, as it is surrounded by 3 storey shop & houses and when. It has a red metal plate on it about 5ft up it with no 3, no 13 & IJK all punched out of it. Below that there is a small sign saying DP1 and small round metal disk with D on it. Can you give us any ideas about when it was installed?"

Surely these two emails are, mutually, self-answering and so I don't need to? But to answer Mike Shephard's first question, yes, we did have it on record already - agent Brunsden, John, #0469, shaken, not stirred, sent us this excited video with his interpretive comments:

"An unmarked 'D' stout pole...look at all those steps !!! I don't know how they managed to get it up in that location all those years ago, and I would not like to have to renew it! The video does not really do justice to the length and girth of this old pole!!"

*¹Loosest, most exaggerated, definition of "last week or so" - it was July actually.