Broken Poles

Good friend, honourary member of this society (#0466) and professional Telegraphpoleologist, Andrew Rowsell sent us this picture with the recommendation that we should “have a butchers at it”.  The pole, he tells us, was originally hit by a vehicle with the 20pr cable being all that is keeping the remains in the air.  Apart from the police advertising their tardy arrival to this Dartmoor based incident, we also can’t help but wonder what the hell is a Stannary town?  Anyway, this photo puts me in mind of one I saw in the middle of Ireland a couple of years ago.

With apologies to Andrew for the slow inclusion of his picture on the website, and apologies too to everyone else who has written in the last six months or so.  I will get around to them all sooner or later I promise.  And I do have a list of excuses to hand, my main one being that my wife and I are living in a pile of rubble with only 3 exterior walls and half a roof.  “Renovation project” the estate agent called it stiflilng sniggers as he handed us the keys. 

Firstly, please let me apologise for the paucity of posts to this site of late.  If you could see the pile of rubble which presently forms my abode you would understand.  Completely.  The same delay also applies to email replies, letters, photo posts and my income tax payment.

Anyway, by way of catching up a little, herewith a triptych of busted poles sent to us by telegraph pole task force of Graham Davis (#0513) and his sidekick, Dave (#0516) aboard their BT Battle Bus.

All this brings me on to this week’s reader request spot.  We’ve had an email from a lawyer from a large international practice. With the following;

Dear Sirs

I represent a young man who was struck on the head recently by a falling BT telegraph pole, sustaining a severe head injury.

Are you able to recommend any experts who could comment on the decay to the pole, what caused it, how long it had been there, and whether BT’s system of inspection was reaonable. Any assistance would be appreciated.

Kind regards

Perry

Perry cleverly got straight to the point – aware perhaps that at the first sniff of anything legal I hit the delete key so hard I would normally require a replacement keyboard.  Anyway, I am aware that many readers of this website fit the requested criteria, and if you can help in this matter, please do get in touch so that I can pass your details on.  It might, however, be completely incongruous with your long service medal if you already work for BT though. Or even having a job this time next week.

When a telegraph pole is in a flush of youth, I don’t imagine a woodpecker would give it a second glance.  Tarry, smelly and quite untree-like.  But once they’ve aged a bit and the decades of torrential British summer has washed away the creosote, they start to become fair game.  So what if the branches are a bit thin, and there’s no leaves to speak of? It’s tall, perpendicular, and is made of wood – ergo it must be a tree.

John Brunsden (#0469) sent us these photos recently :

Thought your readers might like to see what one of the telegraph poles biggest enemies (aka Woody Woodpecker) can do to condemn a pole to “D” status…

…you can see the coach bolts that hold the steps on are clearly visible

(sorry about the quality of pics – taken on a basic nokia works phone !)

Knowing what havoc finding hidden metalwork causes to my chainsaw; hitting that iron coach-bolt must surely have tested Woody’s resolve. The pole is near Langport in Somerset, and John tells me that the woodpecker usually comes back and makes holes in the new poles too.

Anyway, please don’t apologise for the quality of pics – they’re always gratefully received here at TPAS Towers.  Please email photographic contributions to martin@telegraphpoleappreciationsociety.org.

Veteran correspondent on matters telegraph-polique, Andy Rowsell, recently sent us this picture of a dead pole.  This one was in a ploughed field at Tregony in Cornwall. 

Andy, you see, has the good fortune to work for those nice people at BT  whereby he often happens upon such disaster-befallen poles. Thereupon he issues orders as to its repair/replacement/removal – but not before he’s got his trusty phone out and snapped a picture for the good and enlightened people who subscribe to these pages. 

If there was a New Years Honours list for services to Telegraph Poles, I think he would probably be Andy Rowsell CBE by now. If he isn’t already of course.

My first thought when the email containing this photo landed on my metaphorical doormat was… Why has somebody sent me a photo of my daughter’s bedroom?  And why does she have a lorry in there?  I’m going to have to have a word with that girl!  Then I read the accompanying text.  Telegraph Pole erector, fixer and photographer #0469 John Brunsden had been called to this unfortunate incident near Bridgewater in Somerset. Relieved that he only had to renew the pole and not tidy up beforehand.  Then not tidying up  seems to be my daughter’s attitude too – so long as the door will still open, what’s the problem?

Anyway, I can probably hear John Brunsden thinking “Blimey, that T.P.A.S lot are slow – I sent them that photo yonks ago!”.  Well, we move in geological timescales here at TPAS HQ, and are of the opinion that everything comes to he (or she) who waits. Except perhaps getting the hoover into H’s bedroom!

O ur Saddleworth correspondent, Stuart X, has been back to the undergrowth and has sent us these pictures from the Delph Donkey line.  A real find for ye olde worlde telegraph pole afficionados such as myself, and I suspect a fair few of our dear readers too.  I must assure him that although the woodwork looks like it would crumble like a wet weetabix if he was so much as to touch it – it’s amazingly resistant stuff and the kerruing heart wood should clean up nicely.  Just like Edward Woodward’s wood would if he had any!

W e also now have an update on our Question 3 from Asela Premachandra 5 posts ago… Apparently, things have moved on and over a weekend, someone mysteriously removed the troublesome rediffusion pole and disconnected the cabling which was trailed across everyones’ gardens.  So a big special thank you to all the wood and copper thieves down there for clearing that one up.

O n the morning in question, the witness, Stuart X, was proceeding in a southerly direction along the old Delph Donkey Railway Line in the direction of Dobcross. 

Whilst investigating the undergrowth – for reasons best known to himself, Stuart X discovered the dismembered torso of an LNWR telegraph pole.  The crossarm supports of which were in a rusted condition with the remaining two of its original complement of four insulators suffering severely broken ceramics.  Evidence also exists of a steel ligament to at least one of the supporting pegs. 

Further investigation by Mr X revealed more deceased telegraph pole torsos.  Their time of demise all believed to have been at some time after the railway’s final closure to freight traffic which was around 19:63.

The remains were subsequently removed to a garage in Uppermill where they are likely to undergo an intensive restoration process towards becoming an item of whimsical garden furniture.

Meanwhile, in mid-Wales, the severed head of a GPO pole was discovered in a farmyard near Llanfair Caereinion.  Police are not investigating.

I can’t believe I’ve come to this.  Scrabbling down roadside embankments to retrieve bits of smashed telegraph pole following a tip-off from another website. This obsession all started last year when a lazy BT engineer lobbed an old one into my hedge, which I subsequently restored.  Since then I’ve been rescuing bits and pieces from all over the country.  Including the odd ceramic insulator sent to me in the post.  I have a cunning plan for those but cannot reveal anything at all just yet. All of which has caused my poor dear wife to come down with a severe bout of tutting-eye-roll syndrome.

Anyway, this is one of those lovely antique four-arms that still stand (stood) along the B5105 between Ruthin and Cerrigydrudion in Denbighshire.  And which fortunately, quite recently, I photographed the lot.  it’s unlikely that the offending vehicle is still in a singular number of pieces following such a smash, but there was no sign of it by the time I got there.

Anyway, with my missus “keeping nicks” I  attempted a swift recovery.  However the ceramics were so badly corroded to their stalks that i couldn’t remove them.  But 2 of the arms were shattered and separate from the rest, so for now I retrieved these.  I managed to recover 3 x single grooves and 2 x double grooved white ceramics to add to my burgeoning collection. Alas the wood was beyond economical repair and has been added to the logpile.

I was later to be found sat in our yard scrubbing them back to some fantasised about former-glory.  I know that our Honorary Technical Advisor, Keith S**** H.T.A.T.P.A.S. will be pleased because he just wrote and said so.

> There are a lot of high winds around our part of rural altitudinous Wales.   And the very latest one proved too much for this particular  telegraph pole.  Alas,  this pole forms part of the long chain between my house and the coal-fired exchange down at Maerdy.  So although the wire never actually broke, all my telephone calls and internet dalliances now take a slight detour as they leave our house – a deviation of about 15ft vertically.

And this has had some odd effects : 

* I mis-dialled the doctors surgery only yesterday morning – getting through to the coal yard in Corwen instead.  And they closed down 8 years ago.

* This morning I had an email off someone I hadn’t heard off in years, nay ever.

* On Wednesday, I answered the phone as ex-newsreader Moira Stewart.

I spent an hour on the phone to BT – again, owing to the detour was in fact 1 hour and 3 minutes – to report the issue.  Reading between the lines of that conversation though I got the distinct impression that they didn’t, in fact, “share my concern” quite as much as they said they did.

So… The pole remain there at its jaunty angle of 68 degrees to the perpendicular and will probably remain so until the day the BT van man eventually passes this lonely way again on his (her) way to mangle mine or someone else’s connection. Just don’t be surprised where your emails might end up in the meantime!