[Tim]

David W.
That reminds me…………
About thirty years ago I had a fault at a customer in Bristol. When I arrived, I could see they were fed by open wires, one of which had broken and( fortunately, as the pole was across the road from the house) wrapped itself round the other.
A quick clear I thought, so climbed the pole to investigate. The wire had indeed broken, at the pole end, so I wondered if I could give the customer temporary service by joining the wire with a large crimp connector. This proved impossible as the wire was too hard. I pulled the broken wire tight, and in order to see if I could re-fit it into the existing crimp, bent it at 90 degrees. The wire promptly snapped at the bend. Foolishly I repeated this a few more times, each with the same consequence. So there I am, up a pole holding onto a wire, which is now too short to reach the pole, across a busy road and I can’t let go without it falling into the traffic.
I was just trying to work out how to get out my linesman’s phone, and connect it to the customer pair in order to make a call to control and summon help when another engineer arrived to do an install at the next but one property.
A quick shout to explain my situation, and he was able to stop the traffic for me to drop the wire.
A new style dropwire was erected and another story for the memoirs created!