These have to be the most remote telegraph poles in the UK.
They are on the Isle of Foula which is way out into the Atlantic some 20 miles to the west of the Shetland Islands. Foula is arguably the UK’s most remote permanently inhabited island.
The poles used to support a ‘VHF ‘Rhombic’ aerial that provided the telephone link from the exchange (the little building) to the mainland before being replaced by the microwave link.
The photo was sent in my Ian Jolly*, who tells us that he left home in North Wales on a Monday morning and travelled continuously (including throughout the night) finally arriving there on Wednesday evening. A journey of some 700 miles including nearly 300 miles by sea.
He tells us:
This is a single pole that is more remote as it is on the western side of the mountain in the background. It is the last pole on a route that took a single telephone line across the island to a lookout post from a submarine cable that came from the mainland of Shetland during WW1.
The public telephone service didn’t appear on Foula until the late 1930’s when a single line to the Post Office arrived. The telephone exchange arrived in the early 1970’s and its recovery for my collection was the reason for my visit. It was still clicking away in service after BT had had their ‘Last Electro-Mechanical Exchange’ ceremony but they didn’t know it was still in use. they were still dialling two digit numbers to reach each other and had untimed local calls!
You can hear a little about it by dialling 01595 70 8222 where you’ll hear the sound track from the video I took as it was being changed over to digital working.
*Ian Jolly is one of a collective of enthusiasts who restore and maintain, in working order, a replica of the mechanical GPO telephone network. More of which in coming posts.