Metal Poles

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.