Pylon painter - FT.com Phil Boswell, CLC Group I have been painting electrical pylons for 30 years. By doing so, we probably give them another 40 years of life. A lot of them were erected in the 1920s by guys in a donkey and cart. I wear a balaclava, a helmet with a visor and sweaty red gloves. We coat ourselves with Vaseline and bring eyewash. It's nasty stuff, the paint, with flakes of mica. You are connected by a lanyard, worn under your overalls. Two "tail" ropes come out a slit in the back to connect to the ropes, so you're attached continuously. There are step bolts, but you are free-climbing most of the time, on thin steel. Everybody has the odd moment when your heart's in your mouth. But the furthest you can fall is 1.5 metres. You have a belt, like a weightlifter's. On a big tower, say 150ft, you carry four gallons up. You drop paint off as you go, then paint from the top down. It's like a jigsaw puzzle. If you don't paint it right you will box yourself in. The primer is bright yellow and the top coat is dark grey, so you see where you've missed. Most of the time the power is on. It only goes off when we do the cross-arms, where you can find birds" nests. The worst are the crows - they attack you. My favourite pylons are in Cornwall. The towers go across the sand dunes and on to the beach.