Vintage

Two amazing facts for you here tonight.

1.  This post is in response to an email that is just about to celebrate its first birthday in my inbox.
2.  A disproporionate number of people called John are into*¹ telegraph poles.

Member #0512 and a long-time friend and correspondent to these pages and an ascendent of telegraph poles in the Oxford region sent us these photos.  He says

A couple of pics of a pole I had to recover from the old Austin Morris works in Cowley Oxford. Now it’s not hard to imagine the voice of Lord Nuffield himself travelling along these now defunct wires! what do you think?
Regards

I think you are right, John.  And who knows what tone of Lord Nuffield’s voice these wires may have carried.  Altruistic endeavours, likely – or if my swift internet search*² is anything to go by – something altogether less suited to these pages.  Moving swiftly on…

To fact #2.  29 members of this prestigious society have the name John.  I’m not really sure how many members we actually have as I was a bit random at dishing out numbers at the start but I’ve always been consecutive and we’re now up to #0743 which was issued yesterday.  So, for argument’s sake, let’s say 700.  That’s 4% of TPAS members are called John.  Yet when I come to look at a graph of the number of people called John in the general public I find I can’t understand it, at all,  and so this whole point I was going to make – and it was really going to be a big point, sort of peters out in the hope that you won’t read this far anyway.  Amazing what you find out on the internet.  Here’s John’s lovely photos.

Peter Burton has written to us.  Now, by his choice of email address I presume he must have been having difficulties with a child’s pushchair or maybe a golfing trolley.  Anyway Peter really gets what Telegraph Pole Appreciating (fast becoming Telegraph Pole Conservation) is all about:

There was a line of beautiful hedgerow TPs in a lane near Zelah, Cornwall, often admired by me. Unfortunately, most have recently had one of their three cross bars sawn off to fit a new heavy duty cable. But worse still, the pole at the bottom of the lane, with a full compliment of insulators and sequestered by oak and hazel in the corner of an idyllic field has been cut down and a huge, plain, black, sinister looking pole erected in its place. This ugly, brutal new pole has none of the charm and delight of the previous pole, which has stood there since before WW II. The picture shows the old pole – I did not have the heart to photograph the alien usurper. I fear more old poles will soon be vandalised or removed. And they call it progress. Not for me……….I am heartbroken by the murder of an old friend and the vandalism to the others in the hedge.

Regular readers of these fair pages may remember our insulator appeal on behalf of the Isle of Wight Steam Railway. Well, we’ve had the following letter from Stuart Duddy telling us of their progress:

Hi Martin

I thought you might be interested to see how our project to reinstate the telegraph route along our railway line is progressing. The following link summarises the activities which took place during a couple of weekends in November: <Telegraph Pole Project Summary>
 
As a result of the appeal which you kindly placed on your website on our behalf, a couple of your members contacted us regarding insulators.  A young chap named Jake Rideout (from Somerset, I believe) visited us back in August with a tray of approximately 50 ceramic insulators and we were recently contacted by another of your members, Ian Bristow who lives in Lincolnshire, and he seems very confident that he can also assist, possibly with about 200 insulators, which is most encouraging.
 
With kind regards
 
Stuart

Just goes to show what wonderful people telegraph pole appreciators are – well done to Jake & Ian.

Highly irregular regular correspondent to these most fair pages, Willie Montgomery Stack writes and and encloses photographs…

Sir,
Members of the TPAS East Dorset (2015) branch – not to be confused with any previous grouping or organisation bearing the same name – paid a visit to the West Somerset Railway on June 4th, cameras at the ready.
   One member was flashing away furiously for the entire 75 minute journey on the old Great Western branch from Bishop’s Lydeard to Minehead. The rest of us were just happy to take photographs.
   And look what we saw when the prints came back from Boots this morning – some very unusual finials on the top of several of the track-side poles, eight-sided and with the poles themselves apparently tapered to make them fit. (Photos 1 and 2 below).
   Have you ever seen the like? We would appreciate it it you could bring this to the attention of the wider society – nay, perhaps even to society in general!
Yours,
WMS

Ok, folks. This photo is from Conway Road, Llandudno Junction, North Wales.

Catherine Penrose has written in saying she hopes we can date it and if we have anything else of interest we might add.
Well for starters, and arguably diametrically opposite from “interesting” is that I have spent many an arduous hour – which incidentally, I will never get back – waiting for the London train at Llandudno Jn, and which has, on occasion, been known to arrive.
But what about the pole? she asks. When do we think this was? I told her I would make up a date if none were forthcoming

A note from Here’s Johnny on facebook reckons 9th April.  Thanks for that Here’s but the tree is in leaf, and pre-global warming, unlikely in April.  And Nick Barber reckons 1900-1914.  And my made-up guess date is 1902. Any advance on that?

OTY Telegraph Pole Appreciators.

B eing given the gift of membership to our most august society can be so life-enhancing.  This was the case for John Cranston (#0620) from Norfolk.  The photos that accompany this post are his and his own words, which follow, succinctly tell his story…

Dear Number One,

I was going to send you some old shots of Mull^*1, but they can wait because today, in my very first outing as an ambassador for the TPAS (ooh, I’m so excited) I came across this beauty (though sadly without the cross arms I assume it used to have) in Wells-next-the-Sea in Norfolk.

“Can I help you?” asked a bloke in a bobble hat who was looking at me looking at the pole. “I’m a BT engineer.”

“Actually, I’m a member of the Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society. I’m looking for the date.”

“They don’t have dates,” says BT man.

“I think you’ll find they do,” I replied in my best anorak, train-spotter tone.

And there was one. It was round the back. And it seems to be from the National Telephone Company, 1909.  

(But this is the odd thing: there was no record of a telephone service in Wells till about 1914. And the National Telephone Company never reached anywhere near that part of Norfolk. Perhaps the GPO simply inherited it from the NTC’s stores when it took over in 1912?)

And I love the old label still attached to the front. It must be original. It looks and feels like lead.

In case anyone’s ever arranging a Stunning Telegraph Poles of the Norfolk Coast Sightseeing Tour, it’s in The Buttlands in Wells, next to the Crown Hotel. Click the link for the Google Street view:

Lots of love,

John
Number 0620

A few things I like about this letter:  Being addressed as “Number One” for a start – I could get used to that – though this amply describes my membership number within TPAS, my actual number, because I am not a free man at all is 76,735,969,742.  Please see sister website www.hiraethog.com for confirmation of this.
Secondly, he went out on our behalf to the wider community and performed admirably his telegraph pole appreciation duties, unstintingly and reported back here.
Thirdly, he finished his letter with some love.  And there’s just not enough of that stuff going around.

*¹ We have his shots from Mull btw – what a treat.

Enough of all the forerunning festive frivolity.  A new year, so new earnestness in our telegraph pole appreciating.  And in light of that, I’ve been saving this next item for weeks now…

Robin Hughes wrote in to tell us that the lane near his house was once a significant highway but is now just called Blackhurst Lane.  Up until 1912 this road was the demarcation line between National Telephone Company’s area of Tunbridge Wells and the GPO’s “Trunk Area”.
There remains a run of telegraph poles still in use today and incredibly six of them have GPO 1910 clearly notched into them.
Oldest in Kent perhaps? he asks.

At the time these poles were erected Blackurst Lane was, for many, the ride of shame as the Tonbridge Union Workhouse stood at the Northern end. When they built the Pembury bypass the lane was dissected and these poles now sit in a quiet no through road. No doubt assisting in their preservation.
What really made me smile was the fact that in that part of the lane the only pole displaying an A1024 warning notice (pole needs replacing) was a comparative youngster “only” dating back to 1960!
Best Regards
Robin,

Apologies Robin, for holding on to these photos for so long. For me it was worth it though, as it sets a benchmark for telegraph pole watching in 2015.

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Funny how I could have missed this story on News at Ten…

A group of railway restorers clearing a disused line in Lancashire dug up a rather thin telegraph pole from the undergrowth. To said pole were attached a pair of iron foot rests and also the conical metal finial you see in the picture below. The discovery was made at the disused station of Burn Naze – currently undergoing some restorative work by way of opening the old line to Fleetwood by the Poulton and Wyre Railway Society.  It was their member, John Davies-Allen, who contacted the Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society to ask about finials but also to broadcast news of this discovery to the wider world.   I will now stand to face the general direction of Poulton-le-Fylde and applaud the efforts of these fine people in putting right some of Mr Beeching’s (and his successors) wrongs.

That Reuters or ITN didn’t pick up on all this, though, is a mystery to me.  Seems there’s one rule for buried Viking gold treasure and another for rusting LNWR telegraph pole finials. 

Anyway, whilst the Victorians are often credited with the idea of topping their poles with finials – they had more money in those days after all – wooden finials were fitted well into the 1930s and metal ones are reported to have been in use later still.

Finally this week.  We received a lovely email from Lol from Gmail.  Lol tells us:

LOL…. I thought you would like to know that I have zero appreciation for telegraph poles.

Thanks for that information Lol. We will keep your letter on file and should a need arise for someone who doesn’t appreciate telegraph poles we’ll be sure to get back to you.

My mate Pete Greenrod sent me this photo so I’m including it nice and large to encourage him to take more (click it to make it larger). Firstly, I’ll tell you that it’s along the disused railway line that runs between Penmaenpool and the south side of the Mawddach estuary opposite Barmouth.  This is now a popular cycling, walking and dog-fouliing route.  There’s such a lot about this photo that pleases me.  The disappearing perspective of the old iron poles and their rusting air of melancholia.  There’s the dusty road from infinity with persons unknown distantly visible inviting curiousity.  Then there’s the magnificent backdrop.  I know I am not alone in my opinion that the Mawddach Estuary is one of the most beautiful places on earth.  To stand mid-point along the wooden railway bridge – still in use – and marvel eastwards with a tide in full flow beneath you is invigoration itself.

Dennis Keen is a man after our own hearts.  Dennis lives in Almaty which is the largest city, though not the capital, of Kazhakstan.  We have been in communication with Dennis before as he has sent us some telephone pole photos with an, as yet, unanswered conundrum.

As far as I can tell Dennis is living there to study the Kazakh tongue and walks many miles daily between his digs and his university classroom.  He takes a different route each day, and as you will see, has an exceedingly keen eye for detail.  He has produced a blog called Walking Almaty which describes his walks through this amazing city – one that is completely alien to so many of us westerners – and photographs and logs the minutae of their world.  The word “blog” does not do what Dennis has created any justice and I must insist you give it a look.  As well as pages on the shops, doorways, televison aerials, the birdlife, the grafitti, he also has a whole page on their telephone poles, which is where the link to us comes full circle.

for·lorn (fər-lôrn′, fôr-) adjective
a. Appearing sad or lonely because deserted or abandoned.
b. Forsaken or deprived: forlorn of all hope.
c. miserable, wretched, or cheerless; desolate
Wretched or pitiful in appearance or condition: forlorn roadside shacks.

See the true definition just off platform 7a at Shrewsbury station.

As defined by thefreedictionary.com