I went to pole-climbing school in the early '80s. At Bletchley Park (yes, Alan Turing’s Bletchley Park) there was a field with a little forest of training poles. Most of it was about how to make reliable connections in a joint box, whilst hanging off a pole and without dropping your dikes. So the poles were tiny - feet only a couple of feet off the ground. Instructors could see and check over your joint box whilst still standing next to you. It was a favourite photo for the in-house magazine, “Poles and Holes” to show a field of us, all fully kitted in hard hats, goggles and steel-toe-capped sheeping wellies, all hovering just a couple of feet above the ground.
