do you believe in the telectroscope?

Horace Sprocket

Paul St George writes:

I have just this moment received this from Stephen Herbert. His Uncle Horace has seen the photograph of my great-grandfather.

My dear Paul, Stephen has kindly allowed me to send this electronic mail message on his computing machine:

"The airbrushing of the Brunel image is of course one of the great arts/history debates of recent times. Should we 'tidy up' history in this way?

The photograph of your great-grandfather as a boy prompted me to dig out my only photo of him - a treasured ambrotype taken a few years later during his apprenticeship. His inclination to bore holes was already evident.

Pleased to see the project progressing. Re: Digging a tunnel to the moon - technically feasible, but to create a vortex that long is hardly necessary. Most debris is relatively near to the earth. A tunnel a few hundred miles in length would take a vessel past the most dangerous area. I well remember Arthur C. Clarke's proposals for such a thing sixty years ago, even before his 'preposterous' plans for an artificial communications satellite. I would like to see my oldest friend, who lives in New York, for one last time. Perhaps you would allow my wheelchair into the Telectroscope?

With kind regards, Horace Sprocket (Uncle Horace - perhaps you remember - Christmas 1979?)"

I notice that the ancestor appears to be holding a drill !!!! The tunnel to the moon is something that Paul Conneally asked about. The question of wheelchairs is not for me - everyone will be welcome and catered for.

 

Walking the line

I appear to have touched a nerve with my old golfing partner Paul Conneally:

Hi Tim, It's really interesting how by chance we both find connection with tunnels. The piece I collaborated with Maurice Maguire on 'Walk the Line' saw us taking residents on a walk following the line of a canal tunnel that passes under the 3 Estates in Kings Norton.

It formed part of Maurice's bigger piece 'Changing Landscapes' where he surveyed the route of the canal and marked it on the surface through the estate with blue markers - many showing the depth below of the actual canal.

Many people on the estate had no idea that the canal ran under them and those that had a notion that it did didn't know it's actual route. There are so many 'tunnels' of all kinds right under our feet and if we consider the drains, and cable conduits the amount is hard to come terms with.

I became fairly obsessed at one time with marks on pavements and roads made by gangs of labourers and egineers to guide workmen in digging to lay digital cables. I was struck by how much of the digital revolution was being built on the traditional skills of men with shovels - just like the canals, roads, and train tracks.

All that's best, Paul

How To Build A Tunnel

Some people out there are going further than my simple childhood imaginings. In the Telectroscope Facebook group (join us!), Adam has contributed a very interesting guide to making your own tunnel.

In the newspapers I read recently about the “Mole Man” of Hackney who created a labyrinth of tunnels under his house over the last 40 years. On the radio, I hear about ‘Great Escaper’ Paul Brickhill and commentators discuss the puzzle of why the film theme tune of the ultimate tunnel movie has become our national footballing anthem.

Sometimes it feels like we’re all at it.

It would be nice, perhaps to know how Paul’s great grandfather began his own excavations. Initially I imagined the kind of mysterious Victorian engineering project that Paul Conneally unearthed and emailed to me:

The Williamson Tunnels are a labyrinth of tunnels and underground caverns under the Edge Hill district of Liverpool in north-west England. They were built in the first few decades of the 1800s under the control of a retired tobacco merchant called Joseph Williamson. The purpose of their construction is not known with any certainty. Theories range from pure philanthropy, offering work to the unemployed of the district, to religous extremism, the tunnels being an underground haven from a predicted Armageddon.

On reflection however, it's just as likely that Paul St G's tunnel could have had more humble origins – a man alone, inspired by a hole in the ground, a fissure perhaps. He starts to dig, burrows his way down and it begins. So, Paul, tell us. How did it begin?

Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Paul St George writes:

Tim. You ask about funding and about Alexander Stanhope… This is just a quick reply because the final stages of construction are throwing up new and surprisingly time-consuming problems. I wish you could see some of the experiments and tests. In fact, why don’t we meet again?

The Black Sapper

Last week’s travels underground with my brother made it very clear to me that tunnelling isn’t some marginal pursuit of the very rich or the insanely adventurous. It’s as if human beings are in some way pre-disposed to it - like dogs (well, my dog anyway...).

We’ve all tunnelled down to the bottom of the bed at night as a child, haven’t we? Remember that feeling?

I remember as a child too reading Hotspur comics under the covers, and being inspired by The Black Sapper to go out into the school grounds at break time and start digging. I imagined what it might be like to be confined inside The Mole – the canister with drill bits inside which the Black Sapper lived.

Is this how Paul lives? We need to know.