The Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society

These much ignored pieces of rural and urban furniture finally have a website of their own.

This is not the site to visit for technical information pertaining to telegraph poles. You'll find nothing about 10KVa transformers, digital telephone networking or even so much as a single volt. This is a website celebrating the glorious everyday mundanitude of these simple silent sentinels the world over. We don't care what the wires contain either. They all carry electricity in some way be it the sparky stuff which boils your kettle, or the thinner stuff with your voice in it when you're on the phone.

21 Sep 2019

Appreciation Day 2019 :-)

posted in: Appreciating, Appreciation Day, Gorgeousness, Telegraph Poles, The Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society |

A telegraph pole with a wild hop climbing it. — What’s not to love ?

11 Sep 2019

The birth of the Telegraph Pole Preservation Society?

posted in: Appreciating, Big Poles, Country poles, Found Poles, Gorgeousness, Vintage |

In all my years*¹ of being Prime Member, #0001, of this very society I have never been sent a photo of a pole with twelve crossarms before, let alone see one in the wild. Until today I thought they were the preserve of BT archives and wonderful books about telegraph poles.

Ray Thorp, ex BT employee of 42 years *²sent us these amazing pictures of an “A” pole on the Coventry Canal. He says it is the last remnant of a trunk route between Coventry and Atherstone. He also suggests that there are several Canal enthusiasts who would like to see it preserved. He doesn't think his erstwhile employers*³ would be interested and asks who might be the best people to contact with regards the preservation of this wonderful specimen.

Well, if Deep Mind's Alpha Go project and it's 1,202 CPU processors can beat Chinese expert player Fan Hui at the notoriously difficult board game Buckaroo then we 1,000 members*⁴ can surely combine our own not inconsiderable neural networks to come up with someone or somehow or someway to save this canalside beauty.

Come on TPAS let's be the T.P.P.S.

*¹ Now officially measured in decades
*²There is some ambiguity as to whether Ray's been an ex employee some 42 years or whether he worked for them for 42 years and does no longer.
*³ 42 years hence, or perhaps not (see *²)
*⁴ Give or take a number between 1 and 1,000.

19 Aug 2019

Openreach employee of the month

posted in: Country poles, Engineers, Oddities, Submissions, Telegraph Poles, Things on poles |

Normally this award would be given to the Openreach employee who most recently fixed my phone line or got my internet going again. But for August 2019 a TPAS Order of Merit (see right) has been specially minted for us to give to Wayne Firth. Wayne used to be a ringer-of-wood and laddersman trapeze artist in the alfresco world of telegraph pole inspecting. Now, though, his hands are clean and splinter-free, his collar only slightly grubby and his life a whirl of acetate overheads and powerpoint system crashes in the murky world of the office interior as he trains up tomorrow's pole rattlers.

Wayne kindly sent us the collection of photos of poles, various, that you see below. 3 pics of extremely hirsute poles, 4 photos of pole stacks - where all the different types of pole are laid out in their categories before being selected for installation and finally a pole/tree hybrid that he found out on his rounds. This is a tree that is growing completely around the pole itself.

One final thing. Wayne didn't say where he was from, but judging by the fact that every one of these photos it seems to be soaking wet from recent rain I would say he must be from Blaenau Ffestiniog.

12 Jul 2019

The Incredible Shrinking Pole of Swaledale.

posted in: Country poles, Found Poles, Oddities |

Always a delight to hear from our East Dorset Branch chair, Willie Montgomery Stack:

Sir,

I came across this unusual telegraph pole recently while walking near Richmond in the Yorkshire Dales (and definitely NOT loitering, despite the words on the charge sheet; I intend to plead not guilty).

I am assured it is the sole remaining pole from the ill-fated Swaledale trunk route, a 40-mile line across the Pennines which locals say was doomed from the start. They warned the GPO that the terrain was highly unsuitable but their advice was seemingly ignored. Within weeks of the line's completion in 1953, half the poles had sunk into the disused lead mines which honeycomb the dale. One actually disappeared into the ground while an engineer was up it. They're still looking for him. Another, as it plunged into the earth in the village of Muker, dragged to destruction six bikes belonging to members of the Swaledale Cycling Club and a border terrier called Arthur, all of which had been left chained to the pole while their owners were in the Farmers Arms, Arthur's owner being the notorious drinker, womaniser and pugilist Algernon Swinson, then suffragan Bishop of Ripon.

Remarkably, this pole has taken a full 66 years to lose some 24 feet in height. But these could be the last photos taken of it. Its descent is finally accelerating, according to villagers. They mutter that it may vanish altogether by "Reeth fair twemmunth", whatever that means.

Yours, as ever,

Willie Montgomery Stack
E. Dorset T.P.A.S.

11 Jun 2019

Pole of the Month – June 2019

posted in: Country poles, GPO, Pole of the Month |

This pole first hit the national consciousness in 2011 when the supreme voting committee of The Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society selected it as Pole of the Month for April of that year. Fast forward eight years - beyond the street parties and media attention that went with this fabulous accolade - to this most moist of mediocre summers. Despite it's large red D plaque and a BT recovery notice, this 1932, 28ft GPO giant stands defiant, resplendent with five crossarms and a mishmash of insulators all the time carrying absolutely no wires whatsoever. Serenely and elegantly it keeps watch over the village of Pwllglas and the A494 which whizzes along beneath its sentinel gaze.

Meine Damen und Herren, I give you Pole of the Month, June 2019...

19 May 2019

TPAS Annual Telegraph Pole Expedition

posted in: Country poles, Gorgeousness, GPO, Slideshow, Telegraph Poles, Vintage |

Yes, you all missed the chance to burgle my house while I was away. And the key was under the mat the whole time. Not just me but the entirety of Telegraph Pole Towers took the high road to the top left hand corner of Great Britain. In order to avoid the M6, we drove first overnight to Holyhead for an early ferry to Dublin. Drove to Donegal just for a laugh and because I was promised a pint of something special. Then caught a ferry Larne to Cairnryan. Drove north to Oban. Camped the night in Taynuilt station car park. 5 hour ferry to Castlebay, Barra for week #1 in a cottage next the airport beach. Then ferry from Northbay, Barra to Eriskay and week #2 cottage on South Uist. Thence ferry from Berneray to Leverburgh (Harris) and drive north for week #3 at Tolstachaolais, Lewis. All finished off with a stinking campervan meander homewards via the B roads of Scotland over 3 days with a dash along the nasty and unavoidable M6 bit.

Herewith telegraph pole encounters of our trip. Click images to enlarge and see captions.

10 Apr 2019

Treasure Trove in ‘Ull

posted in: Broken Poles, Country poles, Found Poles, Insulators, Railway poles, Vintage |

Regulars to these pages will, by now, know that Aaron Bailey (who has dropped the H from Hull*) is a regular rummager along deceased and non-deceased railway lines for telegraphular artefacts. Indeed, he has a Pole of the Month (May 2018) to his credit. There follows the photos from his latest jaunt - one in which his particular interest was poles that are attached to the side of railway bridges,

The round pole is on the side of a Hull and Barnsley railway bridge. He confesses to taking this photo from the queue at a drive through McDonalds (for goodness' sake)

The square pole is on the side of a viaduct on the Settle and Carlisle Railway whereupon he also found some insulators incl the LMS fatty you see here.

I really do envy urban dwellers this access to railway heritage. I live so far from civilization that even the roads have petered out long before they get here. Denizens of these rural depths have been known to cross themselves whenever they see an aeroplane pass overhead and gasp excitedly when someone switches on one of these new electric light things. Still, we keep being reminded that the 19th century is just around the corner.

*^{Must be a dialect thing}

5 Apr 2019

Telegraph Poles in art #17

posted in: Art, Gorgeousness, Telegraph Poles |

An Acadian Flycatcher (by William H. Majoros) — Mrs Clarkson, yesterday.

TPAS Agent #0893, Nick Clarkson, had his eye on this particular piece for some time. Waiting on just that moment when the furniture shop twigged this wasn't the next big-seller they'd imagined and dropped the price sufficiently for the tight-of-fist.

As the new owner of this spectacular all-metal "installation" measuring 82 x 46 cm Nick tells us how its presence on his living room wall gives him so much pleasure, whilst at the same time having a bizarre effect on his missus - insomuch as she has taken to dressing as an Acadian Flycatcher and runs around the lawn. I'll leave those who know Agent #0893 to ask for clarification on that one.

Nick was concerned that he may have over-egged it when he first wrote to describe this thing that hangs upon his wall. No need to worry there old chap. Telegraph pole related objects, particularly d'art, can never be over-egged in my opinion.

3 Apr 2019

Most dropwires of the month competition…

posted in: Adornments, Big Poles, dropwires, Honorary Technical Advisor, Telegraph Poles |

Is officially opened by esteemed society Honorary Technical Adviser Sir Keith S***** H.T.A. T.P.A.S.

“I noticed this pole in Norden near to my home in Rochdale. I think from experience it is probably an 11 metre medium pole, cannot be sure as unusually it has no cutting in, perhaps cutting in was abandoned. It used to be quite an art to etch a pole’s length and class clearly cleanly and quickly with a curved chisel.It drew my attention because of the unusually large number of cables connected to it, there are in fact forty! the most I have ever seen in my many years of pole observation.

I hope you will find this of interest. I had to fill my pensioner phone with boiling water so it would boil quickly and enable me to capture this image while the sky was blue.

Yours etc.”

Way too grainy a photo to be considered for pole of the month – but 40 drop wires? Bring on the challengers. I’ve even started a new post category for this.

13 Mar 2019

Pole of the Month – March 2019

posted in: Country poles, Found Poles, Gorgeousness, Oddities, Pole of the Month |

“Esteemed Sir,

Can a post be a pole? And might this one be the last surviving example of its type?

During the Spring half term outing of the TPAS East Dorset branch last week, our members stumbled across a truly remarkable edifice which we would like to bring to your attention. Approaching a road junction a stone’s throw from Coverham Abbey in North Yorkshire, our members glimpsed with delight a proud array of cross arms and insulators. Naturally we all leapt from the tour bus to take a closer look but it was several seconds before we realised that, while it meets the TPAS’s strict criteria of being wooden and sticky-uppy, the thing is distinctly unpole-like in one respect. Rather than being rounded (part of the Oxford English Dictionary definition of a pole), it is SQUARE in section, resembling a railway signal post rather than a telegraph pole. It is a distribution pole (DP 2) for the tiny Coverdale telephone exchange and was clearly stuck there by the GPO, although no further identifying marks can be seen upon it.

Our excitement knew no bounds at its discovery. Mrs Pringle was heard to remark that she’d never been so grateful for Tena Lady. And we are all agreed we haven’t seen anything like it anywhere else.

Have any other members ever chanced upon such a thing, and might you be willing to consider it as a candidate for Pole of the Month, if not the decade?

Faithfully yours,
Willie Montgomery Stack”