Oddities

Our use of the word “month” to describe our “Pole of the Month” takes this chronological division of time to its loosest possible definition.  You certainly couldn’t set your calendar by it.  Perhaps I should re-title it “Pole of the length of time since I last remembered to put one up”.  Not quite so prosaic.

Anyway, herewith a photo that was submitted to me as a possible contender for P.O.T.M.  And while this is clearly an interesting piece of street furniture – insomuch as it’s a right old mess and it’s in Santiago Atltlan which is in Guatemala – it just doesn’t quite float my boat enough to warrant POTM status somehow.    Perhaps it’s that the photo is just of the central gubbins? And that the top is missing, and the bottom; as too is any interesting background.  You see, for the true poetry of a pole to come out we need to see it harmonising in its natural environment.  So, Simon Shouler – who I think sells houses for a living – thank you very much for taking the trouble to send us your submission, but I’m afraid it won’t go down in history as a T.P.A.S. P.O.T.M.

On another note, Brian MacDermott wrote to us…

I seem to recall as a young lad (late 1950s, UK) that we called insulators ‘dolls’ or ‘dollies’. Is my memory correct??

Many thanks

Brian

 Well, I have never actually heard them called dollies, but I like the idea so much that I’m going to perpetuate this idea.  So Brian, the answer to your question is “Yes”.  insulators are (from now on at least) called dollies.

Rob Stayt, a retired policeman, telephone tech and polymath farmer from South Africa sent us this photo of a pole that is so short it is hard to imagine it ever being beaten in the T.P.A.S vertical challenge.

Rob tells us that a combine-harvester pulled down the farm telephone ine down along with three poles ( a drive-by uprooting as it were).  Once he’d chased down the errant harvester and demanded apology for Mrs Stayt who was on the phone at the time Rob decided to repair the part of the line near the house.  This is the result.

Now, Rob lists his address as Natal, South Africa… I remember my missus going to ante-Natal classes – I always wondered why she was so bloody long!

If ever anyone looked like a murderer it’s Reg Tracepurcel.  Shifty shop steward type.  Yes, we know his sort.  My Missus reckoned it was the old guy, played by Martin Jarvis. But I had Tracepurcel’s card marked all along.

As if the new ITV series “Endeavour” isn’t already enough for murder mystery and Inspector Morse buffs – this week there was an added dimension in that episode #3 featured a telegraph pole.  Not only was this pole key to solving the dastardly crime, but it’s constituent ceramic insulators were provided by this very society.  Also the expertise [sic] that helped their props dept reconstruct a GPO pole of the era.  Relying on me for expert advice will probably lead to a flurry of emails about anachronistic technology from real ex-GPO types.  Serve them right for asking me. 

‘Twas some months ago we posted them a collection of mostly intact double-groove insulators.  And a couple of months later when we received back a parcel of completely different and largely broken ones.  They had, it seem, edged their bets and borrowed some off Jack Nesbit too (British Insulators website), returning me his lot by mistake.  Only they got knacked in the post. Oh what a tangled web we weave.

Anyway, me and Mrs TPAS borrowed a telly for the event, sat down with a box of past-their-sell-by Maltesers and got ourselves enthralled in the murky world of murder on the telly.  If you want to spoil things and see just whodunnit, click right HERE.  I said it was going to be him all along – shifty looking so and so.

You can watch it on the ITV iPlayer thingy here. It’s available for the next 23 days.

Lord of the Northern Poles, Kevin Currie* (#0530) sent us this photo he took recently…

Not sure if this was a woodpecker or a dinosaur! but either way some thing took a big bite out of this poor defenceless telegraph pole in the Scottish Borders! 

Here be beasts.  Big beasts!  Big bad biting beasts! Go careful out there.

* Happy Birthday Kev

Well, there I was smugly satisfied that I personally had already bagged the world’s smallest telegraph pole back in June of this year.  And then along comes telegraph pole connoisseur, Graeme Fisher, from Stourbridge with these absolute gems.  These, he tells me, can be found at the Cable and Wireless Telegraph Museum at Porthcurno. 

They’re so sweet they make you (me anyway) say “aw bless!”.  Look, they’ve even got the proper cable tie-offs on the insulators – you just don’t see that anymore. 

Anyway, thank you Graeme.  You can expect more gems from our telegraphic cognoscentic correspondent in the coming weeks. I know that because I’ve already got the pictures.

Whilst we know that 99% of all telegraph poles are made from trees, few are quite so obvious of their arboreal origins as this one.  Thanks to regular contributor Andrew Rowsell for the photo.  Andrew, a sort of latter day GPO official, visits the pages of the Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society by way of a busman’s holiday. 

He didn’t say where the picture was taken but this one looks like it’s just had the branches all cut off and the wires attached. 

He was also at pains to inform us that his friend Johnny has one of our pens.  I was wondering where that had gone!

The first ever transatlantic radio message between the United States of America and Great Britain originated in Massachusetts in January 1903. That was from Theodore Roosevelt to King Edward VII to say that he was on the train.

Meanwhile, the first ever telegraphic email message between Massachusetts and our HQ in mid Wales occurred 109 years later, in July 2012, and was from a discerning sparky called Carter Wall containing news and a picture of an interesting telegraph pole.

Hi, I work for an electrical contractor in Boston, Massachusetts, and have always been a pole fan – particularly what we call “daughter” poles, where an old pole is strapped to a new one, rather than moving all the utilities from one to the other. This is a rather extreme version of a daughter pole.

Carter Wall

The words “blinking” and “marvellous” come to mind. Carter also kindly provided an internet link by way of anwering Dan Selby who posted back in April that he was looking for a manual on a KS-19935 L7 Test Set. Well, here you go Dan. Thank you Carter.

All in a day’s work here at the Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society.

Some eccentric telegraph pole related folklore has come to my attention recently… 

   Peter C. Nutt started the ball rolling with this letter:

Then, this week Mick Hughes from Pipex wrote :

Well, I’m a great believer in the old adage that there’s no smoke without fire.  And two people coming up with this notion means that it absolutely must be true.  So to ensure the correct propagation of this interesting myth I shall, here on these esteemed pages, categorically confirm that it is true.  Not only is it true, though, but the crossbars are actually aimed, using a sextant or something like that to face towards GPO Post Office Tower, 60 Cleveland Mews, London W1 T6.

You couldn’t make it up!

You can only begin to imagine the super-obese proportions of the sparrow that must have landed on the wires to bend a telegraph pole over like this.  The photo was sent in by our Openreach correspondent, Andrew Rowsell (#0466H) who tells us that this particular pole is in Plymouth. And that all his friends and colleagues are mad jealous of his new TPAS certificate. Who wouldn’t be?

Meanwhile, I’ve had an email from our Honorary Technical Adviser, Keith S**** H.T.A.T.P.A.S.

Just a line to touch base (as they apparently say in America). The new photo of the levitating pole is interesting. Have you noticed it has been cut off, sawn off? not snapped off in the wind, which is no doubt seriously keen in Ireland. Maybe another pole has been planted to take the strain. It certainly shows the strength of B.T. cable, (looks like a telephone pole to me), have you ever pondered the difference between a telephone pole and a telegraph pole? Such esoteric thoughts plague me constantly!

The wisdom and that last bit sums up in one-and-a-bit sentences exactly why Keith S**** is our Honorary Technical Adviser and not anyone else.  While you and I are wondering about Poincare’s conjecture, if the Higgs Boson really exists or whether hands that do dishes really can feel soft as your face, Keith ponders the difference between telegraph poles and telephone poles.  We’ve missed you Keith.