The high life Paddy, 102, looks back on a career fixing country’s pylons
IF you ever needed a pylon fixed, Paddy Macken was your man; now at the age of 102, he has looked back on climbing them for over 40 years, despite not being a lover of heights and almost losing two fingers in the process.
Paddy celebrated his 102nd birthday on January 21. He was born in 1922, when his homeland, Ireland, gained independence.
He was born in County Mayo, on a country farm near a lake and is one of nine siblings. His father Bartley died when Paddy was six, and his mother remarried.
Paddy recalls his childhood in rural Ireland, where he had to walk a mile to school, sometimes barefoot, and bring a sod of turf for heating. He also remembers some mischief he and his brothers got into with one of their teachers, who left his car parked outside their house.
“There was a boat on the lake, and the teacher was out on it one day. He left his car parked outside our house, and as we had never seen a car before, my two brothers and I went to look.
“When we opened the door, it wasn't locked, and the horn started to blow. The teacher heard it on the lake and soon got back to land. We hid, and he couldn't find us, but the next day at school, we were called up and told to stand by the wall for an hour or so as punishment.
“We were fascinated as there were only three cars in that area,” he added. “They were owned by English people, who were really nice gentlemen.”
Another memory Paddy has of his school days is bringing in a sod of turf.
He explained: “There was no heating in the school, so we had to bring the heat in via a sod of turf. The teacher was right beside the fire, and the pupils had to be freezing in a cold part of the classroom.”
He also remembers the Black and Tans, the notorious constables recruited into the Royal Irish Constabulary as reinforcements during the Irish War of Independence. He says they visited his home once, but left when they saw only his mother and him in bed.
“They were a scary lot. They did a lot of vicious things in those days,” he says.
After leaving school when he was 13, he worked for some local farmers, and then, in the late 1930s, he went to Northern Ireland. He says as a Catholic, he was not welcomed in the region, and he worked in an aerodrome area at the start of World War II for twelve months before returning to Ireland.
“I went there to earn money for the family,” he says.
He then moved to England in 1945 via a boat to Liverpool before heading to London, where he got a job for a cable company, building pylons across the country and settling in Salisbury.
Paddy married his childhood sweetheart, Irene, in 1950. They settled in Bristol, where Irene was a dressmaker.
“In the 1950s, the average salary may have been about £4 a week, but I was earning anywhere up to £20, so it was a good job. My motivation was to save money and put down a deposit for a house. I did that to marry my childhood sweetheart back in Ireland.
“She had got engaged to somebody else to speed up my proposal. She was an incredible woman.”
The couple had three children while living in Bristol.
On his long career with the cable company Calendars, he said it was an ‘ironic' choice as he never had a head for heights.
He says he started as a dumper driver, but after an accident, he joined the line gang and learned to climb the pylons.
“I was watching other blokes shimmying out to the arms then dropping down the insulators, but I persevered, and within a week, I was doing that,” he says.
He says he worked on some of the country's tallest and most challenging pylons. He recalls a winter in Scotland, where he had to repair a wire that had burned a hole in the side of a mountain and about working in situations nobody was prepared for.
“One of the Red Arrow planes hit a pylon while landing at Gloucester Airport in 1976 and took the line out,” he explained. “We were on call to go and fix it.
“All the traffic was jammed on the road, and we couldn't get by. I had to break some safety rules to get the roads cleared and everything safe to put the line back and return electricity to people's homes again.
“A few pieces of the aircraft came off from the jet, and I had to pick them up. Mike Phillips, the pilot, was very grateful and got in touch and presented me with a signed photo.”
Another memory which sticks in his mind is from 1962 in Aust, one of the nation's tallest pylons which connects Wales and England across the River Severn estuary.
He said: “We were out on the line in a car – like a bucket holding us – doing maintenance on the lines. There were four of us in the car and a tractor on the ground, which was letting us out. There was a bit of a snag, and the car jumped up, and the pulley system went over my fingers.
“Two of my fingers were hanging off almost. Blood was everywhere, and one of the guys I was with fainted. We had to get back to the tower, 500ft up in the air, and then climb down it with three fingers in bad shape. I went to the hospital, got that sorted, and returned to the tower and went back up the next day.”
He remained with the company until his retirement in 1986. He says he oversaw most of the projects, taking charge of them before retiring, but he decided to retire early after feeling stressed.
“My daughter, being a nurse, advised me that if that was happening, I should retire, so I did,” he says.
Since retiring, he has been looking after grandchildren and greatgrandchildren, gardening and doing odd jobs for other people, such as rewiring houses or painting.