2006 - Flagpole

	*The Breakspear Archives*
30 March 2006 ~ The New Flagpole - 1


Once in every seventy years or so, or so it appears, flagpoles need replacing. Our school was built in 1937 to what was then a standard Middlesex County Council pattern. Examples of it today are to be found from Hounslow in the west through to Barnet in the East - and almost all now exist without their flagpoles. And yet it is a distinctive feature of the building, usually placed over or close to the main entrance. Already in the early nineties about half a metre at the bottom of the pole was cut away when it was found to be rotten.
More recent examination of our flagpole, to the best of our knowledge the one placed there in 1937, showed that, where there had been a large vertical crack, water had got in and rotted a large portion of the wood. It would have to come down before it became a safety hazard! And, with an eye to the next seventy years, and the Breakspear families of the future as well as the memories of all those of the past, the decision was made to replace this distinctive feature of both the school and the local neighbourhood. Thursday, 30 March 2006 was to be the day.
Mr Saunders duly ordered a new pole and around lunch time it turned up on the roof of a 4 by 4. We were expecting something looking a bit larger, after all it was supposed to be 9 metres long!

The men who were going to fixed it first cut away the old pole, and then the new one was unloaded. At this point we began to see it was much longer than it had appeared. This wasn't going to go up the main stairs to get to the roof!

So, stage by stage it was taken up the outside of the main entrance. So far so good!

Now the problem. The pole had to be lifted up above the white rings and dropped in. How to do it?

Two on the highest point to steady it, one below to lift it up? What, all that weight? Well almost! But the wind was blowing, and on the top of the roof it really was strong. What if they lost control of the new post? Too scary to think about! So how else are we going to get it in place?