Matt Brown has found a great old telegraph pole alongside the disused “Cuckoo line” in East Sussex. Most of the poles have long gone he tells us, but this short one, sans all-but-one insulator, stands silently sentinel over the ghosts of pre-Beeching rail services.As I regularly give in to pressure from Wikipedia and actually donate to their cause, I feel justified in paraphrasing this bit of text from there: The Cuckoo Line is the nickname given to the defunct railway service between Polegate and Eridge in the aforementioned coutny. It was in operation from 1880 until 1968. Apparently, a tradition observed at the annual April fair at Heathfield – a station on the line – would see a lady release a cuckoo from a basket and it being supposedly the ‘first cuckoo of spring’. Well bloody hell!
Anyway, Matt also reckons he’s heard, off a man who knows a man that BT are thinking of getting rid of all telegraph poles by 2030. Is this true? He asks. Over my putrefying, maggot riddled corpse I say. So, yes, probably Matt.Finally, Matt, who renovates classic cars for a living – under the name Precision Panel Craft – tells us is GPO Minor van is slowly coming back from the dead. He enclosed the 2nd photo here by way of proof. So you’ve restored the tax disc then Matt?