The man in the photo below hasn’t climbed to the top of a flagpole and taken a selfie almost 70 metres above the Melbourne city streets in an attempt to gain more followers on social media. Rather, he is, or was, a steeplejack, someone who specialises in climbing tall structures such as chimneys and church spires to carry out repairs, and this photo from The Age ’s archive was taken in 1984, long before smartphones, selfie sticks and social media. Steeplejack Tom Smetana at the top of a flagpole 70 metres above street level in 1984.
Credit: The Age archives Tom Smetana was hired by Myer to carry out maintenance on a flagpole in Lonsdale Street. He had arrived in Melbourne as a refugee from Czechoslovakia at the start of the 1980s. Before coming to Australia, he had made a living fixing the spires of medieval cathedrals.
Myer hired Smetana to carry out flagpole maintenance. Credit: The Age archives Here are another couple of photos filed under “steeplejacks” in The Age ’s archives, although be warned – they make for uneasy viewing for anyone with a distaste of heights. The first image shows steeplejack Terry Green standing at the top of the Melbourne City Council power station chimney in Lonsdale Street, 120 metres above ground, in 1970.
He and his colleague Cliff Brunt had climbed a ladder to the top of the massive structure to check whether any of the cement had eroded. The power station was shut down in 1981 and has since been demolished. The site is now home to.
