A telephone engineer's life was on the line for nearly an hour when a wind weakened tree fell on him while he worked up a 20 ft telegraph pole.

BT man Russell Hughes was fixing battered phone lines during high winds when part of the 30ft tree started falling towards him.

Fearing the collapsing tree would engage with his head and knock him and the cables onto nearby cottages, the 41-year-old, made a grab for it and managed to catch the trunk as it fell.

But Russell, who was working alone, found himself hanging on at the top of the pole at Snuff Mill, Mitford, near Morpeth, Northumberland with the tree resting on his shoulder and nobody around to help.

Luckily the dad-of-one, from Birmingham, was eventually able to reach for his mobile phone and ring firefighters to rescue him.

They were able to take the weight off Russell so he could climb down the pole, before felling the dangerous tree.

Russell was praised by BT bosses for saving himself, as well as the phone connections to the two cottages that had been cut off by the storms.

The BT man, who has a 16-month-old daughter, Arrabella, waiting for him to return home to Quinton, Birmingham, said: "I got myself secured and could see there was a trunk leaning towards the pole."

He added: "There was a crack and then it came my way.

"It wasn't massive but it was thick enough and heavy enough so I couldn't move.

"It was scary - I thought if I let go it would take out me, the ladder and the pole and go into the road.

"I managed to phone the fire brigade and they supported the tree to take some weight off me so I could get down."

BT regional spokesman Paul Dorrell said: "It was certainly quick-thinking. He was lucky he wasn't hurt.

"Had he been there half an hour earlier the lines he had just repaired would have been put out of service again. It could all have come down."

Part of BT's storm task force, Russell arrived in the North-East last week and is preparing to head off this weekend to help out in Cumbria.

Fortunately for Russell, he had already fixed the two overhead lines before the tree toppled.

He admitted to being a touch red-faced when an ambulance crew arrived to make sure he had not been injured.

He added: "All I had was cramp and cold. I was one embarrassed BT engineer when the ambulance came."