I move in some interesting circles, me. I know a man who spends his time counting ants, for instance. I’m on a nodding acquaintance with someone off a TV soap* and I once overtook Olympic swimmer Duncan Goodhew on the M6 near Walsall. All of that and I also count among my friends one of Britain’s brightest contemporary poets – Gareth Writer-Davies.
What the hell has any of this to do with telegraph poles? I hear you ask. Well GWD, as we call him, showed me this photo of a pole at Cilcennin in Ceredigion, and wondered would I be able to translate the stapled-on note. Not being averse to completely lying to look clever I said, “Of course… it’s a note from engineer CFSW etc. to pole visitors of the future that the wire needs to be upgraded to 0.6mm and that the other numbers are the eBay order codes and some pole sequence numbers.” Then, lying considerably less, I told him that this was a BT (Openreach) 9 metre medium pole and that it was creosoted by Burt Boulton & Haywood at Alexandra Dock, Newport in 2004. Er…. in April I think
I think I might just have made it on to his Christmas card list.
* Pobl y Cwm on S4C
