I think this goes beyond just art and artists, this dream life we live that is sometimes so much more vivid than the real one. Jim Swardesley has, in his time in charge of Underhill post office, created an extremely fine post office, within the parameters of what a post office is permitted to be. Many people travel six or more miles out of their way to go to this post office, choosing it over a more geographically practical post office, just because of the atmosphere the person in charge of it has created, because of its unpredictable shelves of local literature, because of its wide range of stationery, because of its reassuringly large and thick door, because of the relentless positivity and patience of Jim’s assistant, Tara. But this post office is nothing compared to how the same post office will be repainted in Jim Swardesley’s mind, many years from now, when he has left the job and moved his family elsewhere. Jim Swardesley’s mindpostoffice will be twice as large, its door twice as old and large, its queues twice as chatty, its nature and topography section a genuine rival for Waterstones. Is that a selection of artisan coffee, handmade mugs and the latest vinyl releases on the shelves of Jim Swardesley’s future mindpostoffice? I believe it is. And who is to say that Jim Swardesley’s future mindpostoffice is any less real than the real thing, because only Jim Swardesley will be able to see Jim Swardesley’s future mindpostoffice, therefore only Jim Swardesley will have the right to decide how real it is.

I must emphasise here that seeing into the future isn’t amongst the range of my talents. You probably know far more about the future now than I do. I just know that Jim Swardesley’s future mindpostoffice will be a thing, because I know Jim Swardesley.

There are actually a surprising number of people out there – surprisingly ecologically conscious people, people with great respect for the landscape around them – who have an aesthetic appreciation of pylons, and Jim Swardesley is one of them. Jim can talk quite extensively to you about porcelain insulators, the Milliken Brothers’ original latticework architecture and the evolution of the Central Electricity Board’s original transmission grid, and was even the admin for a now defunct Facebook group called Pylons I Have Known from June 2014 to September 2016, when an online spat prompted him to step down. Jim took a photo a couple of years ago that he is very proud of, featuring the sun shining down through my pylons; one which I must grudgingly admit has a certain austere beauty to it.