A little light relief

Every Thursday, I meet some friends at the pub and we have a few games of pool, a foaming brew or two, and a laugh. My mate Roy gives me a lift. He duly arrived and, as I left the house, I saw a man wearing a luminous yellow jacket and a safety helmet. He came over to speak to me.

Man: ‘scuse me, mate (pointing to the grass verge next to our house), d’you know if there used to be a street lamp here?

Me: Well, I’ve lived here for 23 years and there’s never been one here during that time.

Man: Only, we’ve been told to replace it.

Me: See my previous remark above.

Roy: Perhaps someone nicked it.

Me: Haha.

Man: Haha. Look at my map – it’s definitely marked as being here. See? Number 5.

Me: So it is, but, as I say, to my knowledge, there’s never been one here.

He then wandered off down the road, looking for the elusive Number 5 lamp-post. We thought no more of it especially as he did not appear to have a replacement street light about his person and went to the pub. We related the incident to our friends with great merriment until, about five minutes later, we saw a lorry go past with a street lighting column on the back. I suggested that perhaps Yellowcoat had misunderstood his instructions and the order was for installation rather than replacement.

Ten minutes or so later, S phoned me to say that she had had a conversation with Yellowcoat after she noticed he was erecting a lamp-post. As far as I can tell, her conversation with him went something like this.

Wife: Would you mind telling me what you’re doing?

Yellowcoat: We’re replacing the street lighting column.

Wife: How can you replace it, there’s never been one here.

Yellowcoat: Well, it’s shown on the map and I’m sorry I’ve got no choice but to do what I’ve been instructed.

Wife: But I don’t particularly want a street light here; there’s one across the road, two behind us at the end of the Close, and one just along the road two properties away. Anyway, I don’t want a light shining into the house all night.

Yellowcoat: Oh, you needn’t worry about that – it only shines straight downwards. Anyway, there’s no electricity.

The whole thing was becoming quite farcical. Resigned to our enlightened fate, S went indoors and telephoned the County Council Highways Department, where a very helpful lady was, er, very helpful indeed and even rang back as promised. Apparently, the previous (non-existent) street lighting column had to be replaced for safety reasons as it was too close to the road. The new one is now closer than the old (non-existent) one was – or, rather, wasn’t. Apart from that, our drop kerb access will have to be dug up to have electrickery installed – we will only be inconvenienced for about a couple of hours and there won’t be any problem as long as we had been given authority to use the drop kerb access – ahem. Well, I spoke to a Highways Inspector yonks ago and he said he would come and inspect – well, that’s his job – and let me know if there was any problem. He never let me know any such thing, so that’s all right, then. I hope. Anyway, the Council are going to write to us with an explanation. They’ll probably just tell us they’ve installed a nice new street light. Let’s wait and see.

With our house as the centre, there are now five street lights within a radius of 150 yards. It’ll be like living in Blackpool.