Engineers

Regular followers of our twitter feed will no doubt be aware that we have experienced some short-comings regarding telephonic and interwebular connectivity of late.  It all happened one Thursday evening a fortnight ago when our connection to the outside world – the one other than us just looking out the window – went dead. It pains me to recall too much of what happened next, but I shall do so as some day historians will likely need this kind of information.

BT told me they would fix my fault on the following Monday.  Ok, I can live with that – we’ll have to just go outside the door to talk to people.  We’ve heard this is what people used to do.  How bad can it be?

Monday came. Monday went.  Another call to BT.  Stuart from Bangalore tells me “Oh yes the fault is in our network and our engineers are busy working on it right at this moment.  It’s a terribly difficult problem”.

Tuesday came, my teeth got all gnashed.  “Eamonn from the same Bangalore office.  Oh yes, they are working right now.  It will be fixed by 23:59 tonight”.

Wednesday… Ajay and Suresh, similar stories.  Engineers are just fixing the line as we speak.  So I braved the great outdoors – as far as my car – and drove into our village following the line of poles all the way to the exchange. Whereupon there was indeed a BT Openreach chap absolutely delighted to see me but alas we were not on his list of fixes. 

Back to the phone and speak to Palash who begs me to stop calling but tells me that the other “advisers” had told me lies – there were, he said, insufficient engineers to get my problem fixed before the following Wednesday – a whole 2 weeks, almost, after the line went dead.

So I declared Twitter War on BT with my main thread being the huge amount of money BT spent on securing the TV rights to Premier League football.  You can scroll through my digs in the Twitter thingy on the left.  Suffice to say, it pays to complain; loudly, often and irritatingly – due to my efforts our fault got fixed fully 20 minutes ahead of schedule. And herewith the photographs of the relevant players in the eventual repair : pole A; pole B; pole B’s aging monikers; Dave Howard BT engineer and wire-splicer par-excellence.

So for the benefit of future historians reading this with utter fascination and also the BT Openreach managerial hierarchy I should like to proclaim that Dave climbed pole ‘A’ with total and utter adherence to your multi-choice box-ticked health & safety guidelines.  Goggles, helmet, gloves, hi-viz, ropes and crampons.  Though, frankly, I thought his parachute was just getting in the way of the safety trapeze ropes and was an accident waiting to happen.

Anyway, Dave, now a hero here at Telegraph Pole Towers enjoyed a beverage of PG Tips brought to him in a TP Society mug by Mrs TPAS in exultant gratitude that I’d finally stopped whingeing, endlessly, on and on and on, about the bloody phone line.
Finally, I have a souvenir of the whole episode by way of a photo of Dave’s moniker which he newly nailed to the foot of pole A.

THE UK’S MOST SENIOR TELEGRAPH POLE APPRECIATOR?

As a young lad in the late 1920’s Ray’s interest in telegraph poles started very early, and he quickly realised that a career in the GPO would get him legitimately close to his new found passion, without the awkward questions.

So, only two days after his 18th birthday on February 19th 1940 Ray joined the GPO, working at the Doncaster Office, and after two years as a Youth Trainee he undertook fitting work in preparation for becoming a lineman. Unfortunately the British Army had other ideas and in 1943 he was posted to India and Burma to become a sergeant in the Royal Signals, providing communications for the 14th Army, hurtling around on his motorbike. At the end of the war he turned his attention to sorting out Indian Posts & Telegraphs in Calcutta, a very responsible job but with limited pole action. 

With much anticipation Ray returned to the UK in 1946 to become a lineman in Retford and these were just the best of times. For 3 years he was up a pole every working day absolutely in his element, until in 1949 promotion brought him down and inside as he moved back to Doncaster working in the Repeater Station, specialising in long distance communications.

But his heart was up the pole… and he had a cunning plan. During his time as a lineman Ray had amassed quite a few ‘bits and pieces’ and was able to build his own pole in his shed, where many a happy hour was spent fulfilling his passion.

His final career move was into management in Danesgate House, Lincoln for a desk job, but of course he was still able to be ‘Weekend Linesman’.  He finally retired on 25th March 1984 after over 44 years stalwart service, sadly also hanging up his safety belt for good…

Congratulations to Ray, who as our most senior member celebrates being 90 years young this Easter!!

Steve Clifton

As the very first flake of snow reaches the ground, a great sense of unity ripples across the country:  Firstly, the transport infractructure goes into free-fall, cancelling flights left right and centre.  Trains and buses too go into a frenzy of delaying and cancelling services.  Even London Underground get in on the act.

Then the schools all close, as do many council and local government offices.  Simultaneously, too, a million public sector workers declare that they will “work from home” for the duration and settle down to a day in their “Onezies” watching endless quiz shows and programmes about doing up houses on daytime TV.

Just as well then that our Great British BT Openreach crews aren’t that lily-livered.  No amount of treacherous conditions will stop them carrying out their steadfast duty erecting telegraph poles and repairing telephone lines.

Whilst we’re downloading endless drivel off the internet, or watching omnibus repeats of Eastenders on the iPlayer – these doughty pole engineers are out there braving the elements and battling frostbite so that we can continue surfing for things we probably shouldn’t when the wife is out – whatever the weather.

God bless BT Openreach pole planting teams – especially the Oxford crew seen here – comprising John Paine and Graham Davis –  members, both, of this very society.

We salute you .

This just has to be my favourite telegraph pole photo of all time.  It’s got everything…  Firstly an esteemed member of this very society: namely   Ronald Coleman  (#0481) , now 85,  who started his career as T2a Telephone Engineer rising to Technical Officer, Special Faults by the time he retired.  He will have been up more poles than I have had hot dinners, cold ones, and all the lukewarm ones in between.

Ronald has fond memories of telegraph pole ceramic insulators as he says they made great impromptu tea-mugs.

This photo also features exceedingly rare, though once common, wide arms wood as well as insulators that actually have tied off wires.

And it was taken in Canterbury – the population thereof might well wonder what that white stuff on the roofs is – it’s called snow – and we get it up north and you used to get it in Kent too in those days. Yes, really!

So there’s Ronald on the phone to someone – when he should be fixing things – up a pole, no helmet, no gloves, just a pair of wellies and a donkey jacket – they were made of tougher stuff in those days.  I have a friend who’s a health and safety officer, and I think it might just prove too much for him if he saw this though.

I bet Ronald only has to look at the tarry splinters embedded forever in his hands and it’ll take him right back. Special thanks to daughter Lynette for sending it in.

Oh, and one last question… Where the hell’s the photo taken from?

F or he hath the power to restoreth the sodding broadband connection (after 34 days).

Was it my terse letter to Graham Sutherland – Managing Director of BT Business that did the trick?  Or did I shake Whitehall to the core by copying the same letter to the Minister for Telegraph Poles. 

Perhaps it was my endless pleading to BT.  Did they know who they were dealing with here?  I’m not just Joe Public – I’m member #0001 of the Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society. I’ve had a letter published in Micro Computer Mart.  I once overtook Olympic Gold Medallist, Duncan Goodhew, on the M6 for goodness’ sake.  I, I mean, we, need the damn internet!

Anyway, whatever it was, seeing the BT van and then the ladder propped up against our own moribund telegraph pole was definitely a cause to break out the Fruit Shrewsbury Shortcakes. And whilst the engineer joylessly climbed said pole and twiddled the wires, we in Telegraph Pole Towers, looking from behind the curtains, were overcome with emotion. 

The penultimate act in being re-connected to the wired web.   All is well with the world once more.

W ho says climbing telegraph poles should be the exclusive preserve of us menfolk? Not me. Scares me half to death the thought of going up a ladder. But Peter Freeman (#0444) sent us 2 photos ex West Mids area, Mrs Susan Wale, pole climbing engineer Welsh Highland Railway Telecoms Department, Porthmadog.

Join the army.

Travel the world.

Meet interesting, exotic people…

and kill them.

Or… if you’re a Royal Signals Engineer, erect telegraph poles all across their land.

Ex R. Sigs squaddie, and even ex-er GPO Engineering apprentice, Johnny Marsden has sent me some photos from his life up an army telegraph pole.  Johnny, who lives considerably less than a million miles from me and has a V8 landrover he’d like help with, tells me he particularly loved the pole work whilst in the services. He also says that he got to play with the full spectrum of PLOH & UG, from open copper to Fibre Optics*¹.
 

Clockwise from top left:

1. All in a day’s work for a TeleMech in Borneo;  
2. A messy pole in Romania, but as a world travelled ex-R.Sigs squaddie Johnny says he has seen and worked on much worse. 
3. Cyprus WSBA, jointing in 88mH Loading Coils to an SSAC as part of a ~14 mile mixed cable route that was Loaded & Balanced between Episkopi & Akrotiri.
  
Anyway, Johnny is well on the way to attaining honorary life membership of our most august society. Honorary memberships can be accelerated by means of bribes in the form of interesting telegraph pole photograph submissions (that we can use).  Please send bribes in a plain brown email to martin@telegraphpoleappreciationsociety.org

*¹ Will no doubt mean something to our Honorary Technical Advisor, Keith S****.