When the lights went out...

11:52am Wednesday 4th June 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

EVENTS at the weekend made me wonder how on earth people managed before mains electricity.

Now I’ve never been a fan of Saturday night TV or the mind numbing reality shows, but somehow I had got caught up with Britain’s Got Talent and the search for a Nancy, and was really looking forward to the two big finals. Did I see them? Did I heck. Just typical, a power cut around 4pm blacked everything out and it stayed that way until 2pm on Sunday. I couldn’t cook, watch TV or see to read by candlelight. I couldn’t even go out because engineers who arrived at 8pm had to dig up an unaffected and absent neighbour’s back garden to find the underground fault and were in and out of the three homes that were hit. As twilight fell the best entertainment I could muster was an hour on my laptop before the battery went. He indoors resorted to an even earlier night than usual with a wind up radio, and I dug out a 1960’s tranny (one of those in a leather case) with only medium and long wave and found a chat show hosted by the outspoken MP George Galloway. By midnight the workmen had had enough, and for safety reasons they said, packed up and went home - and so had I. My biggest worry was the fate of two freezers full of food and the fact that I couldn’t read myself to sleep as normal. United Utilities arrived back on site with generators at 10am and thankfully got the freezers back on. I dreaded opening the doors to look inside but thankfully, thanks to them being jam packed, the items I tested were still frozen. I did ask why UU didn’t send another team to work all night to mend the fault - but it’s because of noise regulations apparently. The only good thing to come out of the experience is the fact that I’ll get £50 compensation for the power being off for over 18 hours.