Just to prove that we’re not limited to poles in the UK & Ireland. Here are three make do and mend jobs from Cherkasy in Ukraine courtesy of Bruce Burrow. Looks a bit parky for my liking. What Bruce is doing out there is anyone’s guess. Anyway, titchy pictures I know – must be to do with the cold.
What is it about telegraph poles and Scotland? Many of the finest extant poles can be found north of the border. And some of our most ardent telegraph pole appreciators are also from up there. Recent member William Brown sent in the photo below of a pole graveyard at Keith railway station yard. The picture, I must add, was taken by fellow new member, Mike Cooper. Official secrets and all that precludes me from telling you their membership numbers. But they are adjacent.
Apart from Keith being the name of my dad, it is a town that sounds like it should be in Aberdeenshire but is actually in Moray and is the geographical location where the A95 meets the A96. It’s also got a football team, a St. Rufus church and a Tooty’s Takeaway. And this pole graveyard of course. I’ve google street-viewed myself hoarse but haven’t been able to spot them. Seeing these expired five armers in rigor mortis I find deeply disturbing. I shouldn’t be looking at this picture so close to bedtime. And I’ve just had cheese.
Every cloud, as they say. Now that I’ve given the location away I can imagine busloads of insulator collectors turning up at some station somewhere asking to be taken to Keith and the conductor saying “He’s not working today.”
While I’m on, just 20 calendars left now. I’m supposed to be moving house so they have to go. Pic below of June by way of temptation.
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.
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…
No prizes for guessing what Prof of Telegraphpoleology Jake Rideout is going to do with these bits and pieces recovered from his local salvage yard (Frome presumably). I’m told this will be a freestanding garden folly sort of affair and we are promised photos of the progress and finished product. Watch this space. And if you’re up for a bit of Friday evening, just before the Archers, telegraph pole porn, you could do worse than check out Jake’s Youtube channel.
Stephen Poole from New Romney asked us to help identify the lump of wood you see below. Found on a beach on the south Kent coast and he thought it might be a ship’s mast. There were two support timbers linked with a metal bar that went through the pole. The markings are three crown symbols, the number 26 and a capital letter H. Somebody told him that it might be a telegraph pole.
Anyway, no point in having an Honorary Technical Adviser unless you’re going to bombard him with questions. And I happen to know that our H.T.A. T.P.A.S. Keith S**** is also on an eternal quest to find a pole butt with his initials on. And because he is likely every bit as old as the pole you see here, we just knew he’d have the answer:
“This is a 26ft stout pole, the growth rings very tight, certainly imported from Finland, British pines do not grow this slow,(the tighter the rings the slower has been the growth) species is Pinus Sylvestris ie. Scots Pine. Light poles had one crown, medium poles 2 crowns and stout poles had 3 crowns , a little unusual to find a stout ie. larger girth pole at this shorter length.
Some poles were imported from Russia but that was at about the time of the revolution and I have seen in the old GPO archives a report from a poles inspector, out there to buy poles, which describes violence in the streets,” I hied myself to a doorway for safety ” he reports.
The letter H is interesting – there would usually be the 2 initials of the inspector who accepted the pole,so probably before the time of even my older colleagues. I can go back to 1969. A shame that we cannot see the scribing at the ten foot mark which would give us a date. It looks free from rot but would be better preserved in the sea than in situ and in contact with the ground, so my guess (educated, but still a guess) would be sometime in the 50s.”
Thank you for that Sir Keith. Anyway, speaking of beach finds, some time ago I was out jogging on a beach, probably on the south coast, and a wooden treasure chest stuffed with gold and jewels of immeasurable beauty and worth fell out of my pocket. So if any detectorists down there (or indeed anywhere) come across any or all of this fabulous fortune – it’s mine, all mine I tell you. And I can easily identify it – it’s shiny and has immeasurable beauty and worth.
Aaron, from Hull, two post ago, tells us he feels privileged to be on our website. And that strangely, other than the pole recognition previously discussed he received no interest from his eBay listing. This in its way is a good thing because now he has made this wonderful hanging basket hanger thingy for the remaining and significant 51% of his household. In the finest traditions of Blue Peter – here’s what he did:
(1) Removed the bottom 2 cross-arms.
(2) Jet washed all the moss off.
(3) Attached a GR “no throwing stones” sign.
(4) Carefully banked the brownie points gained for future use.
I‘ve rattled on before about some of the lofty professorial types who frequent these pages – as much as anything to justify to Mrs TPAS that all these lonely hours spent in shed exile are in a worthy cause. And if David Kendrick (#609) had one of those Toblerone-shaped desk boards with all his academic qualifications listed at one character per inch, then he would need a board 7 ft 6 ins wide – and nearly 10 ft long if ’twere to include his name. So when someone like that writes to you, you sit up.
Dear Martin,
Although many a time and oft’ I see poles that I am inclined to record upon my computing machine, it is rarely I find such a sad sight as this.
Near to Bromyard in the fair county of Herefordshire, whist walking with a friend yesterday, we came across this sad, sad sight. The stub of a maliciously felled Cobra 1957 pole left languishing, but still firmly and proudly rooted, in a field. I wonder if fellow members would wish to see this and to keep their eyes peeled for similar wanton destruction.
I remain, fraternally yours,
David.
That is indeed a sad sight David, and whilst I’m glad you brought it to our attention, I’m afraid I can offer you little by way of comfort. To those who don’t appreciate poles as we do (yes, they do exist) this is just a wooden sticky up thing that was probably getting in the way. You have to look at it like you would when you find a recently squashed hedgehog, sad, but it’s probably best to just put it out of your mind, go home and have a nice cup of tea in a Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society Mug (£8.99 inc p&p).
Back at the beginning of 2011, you may remember I rescued some telegraph pole bits from a work-gang of telegraph pole executioners along the B5105 in North Wales. Well one of their gang, Ged McCarthy, remembered us, and via the wonders of the modern facebook age he sent us a pic of an amazing pole he saw in Lincoln. Well here it is. And much appreciated it is too. Ged is quite amazing insomuch as he writes in a broad Liverpool accent.
Now, as it’s Christmas and I find myself with some time, I have been perusing the wonderful Flickr photo streams for telegraph pole photos. I never pinch any, I just appreciate them. And believe me, some people on there really get telegraph poles. See for yourself by clicking here.
Finally, if your name is Robin Hughes and you’re from Kent then you’re probably wondering when the hell I’m going to publish the fantastic photos of some ancient Tunbridge poles you sent. All I can say is sorry. I forget lots of things (these days) but I haven’t forgotten those. Same goes for anyone who sends me stuff to publish – I do get them all up eventually.
Have a wonderful Telegraph Pole Appreciating Christmas everyone.
