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- Story Listed as: True Life For Adults
- Theme: Drama / Human Interest
- Subject: Ghost Stories / Paranormal
- Published: 03/03/2017
The Lenham Killing Pole.
Born 1941, M, from Kent - Hellfire Corner - England, United KingdomThe Lenham Killing Pole.
Telephones are not the same anymore. No longer do we get crossed lines, mysteriously strange noises or have to ask an operator to be connected to our number of choice. Indeed, we mostly carry our telephones with us, easily available for instant use in a pocket, and useable in many different ways. Overhead telephone lines are also fast disapearing, as the conversion to underground cables and fibre optic connections continues at a frantic pace. These ugly telegraph poles will not be missed though, as they stride across the landscape, and especially the one near the medieval village of Lenham, that is locally known as - The Killing Pole. The story first appeared in the nineteen thirties when the new main road from London to Dover was put through Kent UK. The Lenham section snakes from Maidstone to Ashford, and with a line of new pine telegraph poles marking the route and taking fast telephone comunications to villages along the way for the first time. The skilled and tough linesmen who made the connections to individual farms and houses often worked alone, mostly traveling the route on a motorcycle, with a sidecar to hold their ladders and tools. One such engineer was dispatched late on a winters afternoon to attend to a badly loose connection close to the Lenham junction. It was both cold and windy, with the ever present threat of snow in the air. After parking his motorcycle safely off of the A20 road behind a gap in the hedge, he set up his ladder, put his tool satchel on his shoulder and climbed the ladder to its full height. Using the fixed steps screwed onto the pole itself, he left the ladder and continued on to the top of the pole, arriving at the cross bars carrying the heavy cables. It is not know exactly what happened next, but it is surmised that the ladder was suddenly blown away from the pole and toppled back over the hedge into the field. The worker was marrooned at the top of the pole.
Continuing to work on fixing the fault he connected his test receiver to the line and tried to call the Maidstone depot for help. The call was received at Maidstone and logged, but it was impossible for the depot foreman to hear the message due to the poor quality of the line above the howling wind. It seems that the engineer may have tried to hail a passing vehicle to alert the driver to his situation, and in doing so slipped or was blown from the icy steps, and in falling became caught up in the electric cables by the strap of his canvas satche, which squeezed tight and tighter around his neck. He was unable to help himself and lapsed in unconsiousness.
That night the snow fell hard and deep as it often does in rural Kent, the road soon becoming impassable to cars and buses, and the hanging linesman slowly froze to his death. Icicles formed on his warm body and he was slowly overcome by the freezing cold weather until his snow shrouded body resembled a large and icy sack hanging from the post, turning grotesquely and slowly in the breeze as it froze stiff.
At around ten am, next morning the body was reported to Lenham post office by a man who said he had passed the night at the same spot after being caught in the snow, and feeling too cold to carry on with his job, spent the night hanging around at the telegraph pole. At first light he had seen the body above, and had trudged his way through the deep snow to get help.
Seeing the sign post on the junction which pointed to Lenham, he had set out immediately he said. Although cold and now soaking wet from the melting snow on his clothes, he did not stay to accompany anyone back to the scene of the tragedy, dissapearing as the post master turned to the phone to call the constable for help. He was never seen again, after apparently fading into the misty snowscape on his way back to the pole. As soon as was possible, the local police constable, accompanied by several members of the village fire brigade, made their way to the new road and cut the gruesome body down from the ice covered cables. The frozen and dead man was taken to and kept a day or two in the small old Lenham mortury and, as soon as was possible as the snow started to melt away, was transported by horse cart to Maidstone for identification. The pole stood alone and silent, the only object that knew the true fate of the engineer on that terrible night.
It is said that even today on dark freezing snowy evenings, that a faint glow can be seen slowly climbing the post, where it lingers for a while at the top until suddenly plunging downwards to a sharp bouncing stop and then wavering and turning slowly with the wind.
Weird noises can also be heard from the wires above ones head as they seemingly whisper the words 'I am dying, help me, please help me, dying, dying' in a wavering high tremelo, as the wind whistles through the wires, echoing death on the road below.
This is certainly not a place to stop or to break down when passing over this road. A traveller in the 1960's had his car suddenly stall and the engine stop dead at the very spot as he passed the pole, and he could not get it restarted whatever he tried. It was snowing at the time and his only recourse was to stay inside and sleep in the car. He did not record in detail what he experienced that night, or what he saw, but the effect on him was so severe that he vowed never to drive the road again, either at night or in daylight. He would never reveal the true horror of what he saw at that place. Almost freezing to death himself that night, he was found in a demented state by an AA patrol man the next morning, who warmed him up in the AA van before driving him into Lenham for a hot drink, some food and warm clothes as fast as he could. As the AA engineer had found no fault that could be traced as being mechanical, the car was assumed to have suffered a sudden and complete electrical failure of some kind, but which was completely untraceable by the skilled patrol man. Many times since those days, others have had similar breakdowns at the very same spot and, even more frighteningly, several serious accidents have actually taken place there. And, over the many years that have passed, many people traveling that way have reported a misty figure standing by the road in foggy winter conditions, who seems to wish to direct them off of the road towards the pole, as though evily willing them to crash at that spot.
It is now surmised by local folk that the man who reported to the post office was actually the cold and ghostly shade of the dead mans spirit, risen again and eager to get help to cut himself down and to alert his family to his death. The biting question local people still ask is though, does the unresting energy, surounding this tragic night, still linger within those whistling wires, eagerly trying to bring more unhappiness to this evil spot in order to serve its powerful lust for death? And, more to the point, who locally will be it's next victim?
Copyright - Ken DaSilva-Hill 2017
All intellectual rights retained by the author.
Reproduction only with specific consent.
The Lenham Killing Pole.(Ken DaSilva-Hill)
The Lenham Killing Pole.
Telephones are not the same anymore. No longer do we get crossed lines, mysteriously strange noises or have to ask an operator to be connected to our number of choice. Indeed, we mostly carry our telephones with us, easily available for instant use in a pocket, and useable in many different ways. Overhead telephone lines are also fast disapearing, as the conversion to underground cables and fibre optic connections continues at a frantic pace. These ugly telegraph poles will not be missed though, as they stride across the landscape, and especially the one near the medieval village of Lenham, that is locally known as - The Killing Pole. The story first appeared in the nineteen thirties when the new main road from London to Dover was put through Kent UK. The Lenham section snakes from Maidstone to Ashford, and with a line of new pine telegraph poles marking the route and taking fast telephone comunications to villages along the way for the first time. The skilled and tough linesmen who made the connections to individual farms and houses often worked alone, mostly traveling the route on a motorcycle, with a sidecar to hold their ladders and tools. One such engineer was dispatched late on a winters afternoon to attend to a badly loose connection close to the Lenham junction. It was both cold and windy, with the ever present threat of snow in the air. After parking his motorcycle safely off of the A20 road behind a gap in the hedge, he set up his ladder, put his tool satchel on his shoulder and climbed the ladder to its full height. Using the fixed steps screwed onto the pole itself, he left the ladder and continued on to the top of the pole, arriving at the cross bars carrying the heavy cables. It is not know exactly what happened next, but it is surmised that the ladder was suddenly blown away from the pole and toppled back over the hedge into the field. The worker was marrooned at the top of the pole.
Continuing to work on fixing the fault he connected his test receiver to the line and tried to call the Maidstone depot for help. The call was received at Maidstone and logged, but it was impossible for the depot foreman to hear the message due to the poor quality of the line above the howling wind. It seems that the engineer may have tried to hail a passing vehicle to alert the driver to his situation, and in doing so slipped or was blown from the icy steps, and in falling became caught up in the electric cables by the strap of his canvas satche, which squeezed tight and tighter around his neck. He was unable to help himself and lapsed in unconsiousness.
That night the snow fell hard and deep as it often does in rural Kent, the road soon becoming impassable to cars and buses, and the hanging linesman slowly froze to his death. Icicles formed on his warm body and he was slowly overcome by the freezing cold weather until his snow shrouded body resembled a large and icy sack hanging from the post, turning grotesquely and slowly in the breeze as it froze stiff.
At around ten am, next morning the body was reported to Lenham post office by a man who said he had passed the night at the same spot after being caught in the snow, and feeling too cold to carry on with his job, spent the night hanging around at the telegraph pole. At first light he had seen the body above, and had trudged his way through the deep snow to get help.
Seeing the sign post on the junction which pointed to Lenham, he had set out immediately he said. Although cold and now soaking wet from the melting snow on his clothes, he did not stay to accompany anyone back to the scene of the tragedy, dissapearing as the post master turned to the phone to call the constable for help. He was never seen again, after apparently fading into the misty snowscape on his way back to the pole. As soon as was possible, the local police constable, accompanied by several members of the village fire brigade, made their way to the new road and cut the gruesome body down from the ice covered cables. The frozen and dead man was taken to and kept a day or two in the small old Lenham mortury and, as soon as was possible as the snow started to melt away, was transported by horse cart to Maidstone for identification. The pole stood alone and silent, the only object that knew the true fate of the engineer on that terrible night.
It is said that even today on dark freezing snowy evenings, that a faint glow can be seen slowly climbing the post, where it lingers for a while at the top until suddenly plunging downwards to a sharp bouncing stop and then wavering and turning slowly with the wind.
Weird noises can also be heard from the wires above ones head as they seemingly whisper the words 'I am dying, help me, please help me, dying, dying' in a wavering high tremelo, as the wind whistles through the wires, echoing death on the road below.
This is certainly not a place to stop or to break down when passing over this road. A traveller in the 1960's had his car suddenly stall and the engine stop dead at the very spot as he passed the pole, and he could not get it restarted whatever he tried. It was snowing at the time and his only recourse was to stay inside and sleep in the car. He did not record in detail what he experienced that night, or what he saw, but the effect on him was so severe that he vowed never to drive the road again, either at night or in daylight. He would never reveal the true horror of what he saw at that place. Almost freezing to death himself that night, he was found in a demented state by an AA patrol man the next morning, who warmed him up in the AA van before driving him into Lenham for a hot drink, some food and warm clothes as fast as he could. As the AA engineer had found no fault that could be traced as being mechanical, the car was assumed to have suffered a sudden and complete electrical failure of some kind, but which was completely untraceable by the skilled patrol man. Many times since those days, others have had similar breakdowns at the very same spot and, even more frighteningly, several serious accidents have actually taken place there. And, over the many years that have passed, many people traveling that way have reported a misty figure standing by the road in foggy winter conditions, who seems to wish to direct them off of the road towards the pole, as though evily willing them to crash at that spot.
It is now surmised by local folk that the man who reported to the post office was actually the cold and ghostly shade of the dead mans spirit, risen again and eager to get help to cut himself down and to alert his family to his death. The biting question local people still ask is though, does the unresting energy, surounding this tragic night, still linger within those whistling wires, eagerly trying to bring more unhappiness to this evil spot in order to serve its powerful lust for death? And, more to the point, who locally will be it's next victim?
Copyright - Ken DaSilva-Hill 2017
All intellectual rights retained by the author.
Reproduction only with specific consent.
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