A favourite correspondent of this fair society – and there are many – told us of his afternoon of television watching via the means of iPlayer a sort of BBC device that allows one to go back in time and watch things as they once were. Adrian Holmes – he also of August 2025 in our marvellous TPAS Calendar – was watching a 1945 Powell/Pressburger movie called “I Know Where I’m Going” and he thought we’d all appreciate this screen grab from said film. He also attached a BBC link to a great documentary about Powell and Pressburger’s work, presented by Martin Scorsese – clearly a big fan of theirs. As am I now.
Three photos for your delectation this Telegraph Pole Appreciation Day. Picture #1 is from a recent foray into England. Ostensibly on family business but in actual fact to sample the uniquely quaffable ale that is Haymaker’s IPA at source in the village of Hook Norton, Oxfordshire. This wee DP largely lost in foliage but unmissed by this keen spotter’s eye.
Second and third are photos of photographs in a shop window display in Llandysul, Ceredigion. I know this little town well and these poles made my day and if they don’t make yours then you have no soul.
HAPPY TELEGRAPH POLE APPRECIATION DAY 🙂
Hook Norton, near a pint of Haymaker’s IPA last week.
July, as is usual for the time year, and The Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society closes its extensive office complex and our entire HQ staff buggers off on holiday. For this trip we chose Ireland again and whilst there took the opportunity to visit the famous Leaning Poles of Gleneely. That Ireland has had a troubled political history is a well established fact. That the Irish choose their political leaders according to which way a run of telegraph poles leans is less well known.
These simple telephone poles first started their movements some time around the proclamation of Irish independence in 1916 but their association with political bias remained largely unnoticed until around the time of the first constitution in 1937. Their movement back and forth was assumed to be due to prevailing winds and the weak structure of the soil locally.
The poles forecasting the rise of Bertie Ahern in 1992
The poles can be found on the R238 between Gleneely and Culdaff in Co. Donegal. They were planted perfectly perpendicular but by the mid 1930s they were most definitely leaning in a westerly direction – coinciding with the election of Éamon de Valera of the Fianna Fáil party to the position of Taoiseach*1. The poles leaned this way until over the course of five nights in 1948 they changed direction and swung over to lean eastwards once more. This was just prior to the election of John Costello of FIne Gael where both he and the poles remained for the next three years.
These six poles have swung east and west ever since and the switch is always complete at least a whole week before the elections take place. There was a seventh poll-predicting pole but one reverted to its original upright position following the resignation of Charles Haughey in 1992 has not moved an inch since.
With Leo Varadkar (Fine Gael) incumbent in office, the poles, for now, lean towards the east. All Irish eyes are watching for even the tiniest change in direction.
*1literally translates as “Man*2 with biggest desk”
*2Mrs TPAS says this should say Person otherwise I’m a sexist.
BBC online have been doing a bit of a feature, of late, about the A1(M) which runs from London, north and into Scotland. Well this paragon of tarmac tedium was preceded by an altogether more romantic route called the Great North Road. Littered with coaching Inns, quaint villages, hand-pumped petrol stations and myriad telegraph poles this road took rather more of a meander to get to the same place. Until, that is, the demands of the motorist widened it and took all the bends out.
Secretary of Norwich and East District TPAS, John Cranston (#0620), alerted us to the existence of the delightful film you see below. Shot in 16mm by Colonel Lionel Paten in 1939 who was expecting the imminent war to make a bit of a mess of the old place so set out to capture it as it was. “…The poles just get more scrumptious as the cameraman gets further from London”, said John, “Watch as he eventually decides to set up his camera in front of his parked car and not behind the bloody thing every time. A few minutes of silent heaven.” And this it truly is. I promise you will gasp, your spectacles will turn a rosy hue and your eyes will mist… or you’ll reach for the off switch.
This youTube representation also holds the world record for the quickest descent into racist bigotry within its comments section. From the very first, those emboldened by recent political upheavals were at it like rabid bull terriers with their trolling hatred, xenophobia and bile. As a species we deserve everything we get. Mr Cranston was rather less sanguine about the levels of vile acerbity and I’m still wiping his metaphorical spittle from my lug-holes!
(Twiddle all you like, you’ll get no sound out of this video)
