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Am I right in thinking that the old fence in the pic he the stockfence stapled hard to the strainer but not tied off round the post?

Ye, all fencing round here, since forever, has stock fence hard stapled to the side, There's even some hard stapling HT to the side of posts!!! (Disaster waiting to happen) Couple of fencers will hard staple to side and then tie wire off round but just twisted round not a termination knot