A flag on the flagpole - a bit of a flutter in Stoke Bruerne

The team lowering the
flagpole

The flag flying proudly from the
flagpole - next project is to rid
Stoke Bruerne of all the cables that
cross the canal

A few weeks after I moved into my new (to me) house in Stoke Bruerne BT rang to ask if everything was OK with my landline and broadband service.  It was, but now, as is the custom, the caller asked if there was anything else BT could help with whilst they were in contact with me.  'Well as it happens' I said 'there's a flagpole opposite my house and the village cannot use it because of your BT cables which are in the way of the villagers maintaining the flagpole and it's got no halyard'.

The short answer to my statement was they would put me in touch with the right department; they did; and the longer version of the story is that on 2-April Openreach (a BT subsidiary company) came along (after all the Risk Assessments and Method Statements were completed) and moved the said cable quite some distance allowing the volunteer team to lower the flagpole, clean it, check it for damage and fit a new halyard.  Tonight we have a Union Flag flying proudly from the top of the flagpole.

A huge vote of thanks to Openreach for doing the work free of charge and to one of the volunteers for having the foresight to bring a bottle of champagne to celebrate the occasion.  For the record the last known item to be raised up the flagpole was a pair of ladies bloomers with the initials BW stamped on them and that was on 01-April-1991 - some 23 years ago.