Sharon likes to sleep with a night light in the room. Since her stroke darkness frightens her. “I need a bit of light so that I know I am not dead,” she explains. When she hovered in the half world between life and death while battling to survive her brain haemorrhage she became terrified of the dark.
On March 31, gales blew and brought down power lines. Trees fell and damaged other parts of the electrical supply system. The power failed in the early hours of the morning of Wednesday, March 31. Sharon noticed when she woke up and found she was in the dark as the night light was not glowing. However, we had a good supply of candles and had even remembered to buy matches to light them. These were only bought a few weeks earlier “just in case.” Sharon was reassured that she was still alive. Out came the little emergency battery-powered radio, although there was no news about the power cut on the news bulletins until much, much later, and even then it was just a quick mention, the glamorous Highlands receiving all the coverage of the storms. But for the 20,000 or more people affected in Galloway it was very big news indeed.
The Spanish owned company that supplies the electricity, Scottish Power, quickly had its teams out in the terrible weather working on getting things going again and we are all grateful to the men and women who worked so hard. A phone call to the hospital at Newton Stewart produced the news that they had power supplied by their emergency generator, so Sharon went to her rehabilitation clinic as normal on Wednesdays, taking a CD for the music and winning a bottle of fragrant shower gel in the bingo. Life goes on. The physiotherapist was proud of her efforts as she walked with her new “quad pod” four-footed stick. Of course, the power cut was the major topic of conversation. One lady, Daisy, who was to celebrate her 90th birthday the next day, was born in1920, the daughter of a shepherd and the family lived near a loch in the hills with electricity not even thought of.
No-one knew when the power would come back on again, including Scottish Power as their staff worked flat out in the cold wind and rain. One rumour had it that things would be repaired by 4pm, then 7.30pm. Later in the day it was said that 10pm was hoped for then early the following morning. That's the problem with a crisis, no-one knows what is going to happen – if they did it wouldn't be a crisis. The mobile phone system also failed. Petrol stations were unable to operate as their pumps needed electricity. Shops were closed as their electric tills wouldn't work.
After rehab had finished, we went to Hillcrest House Guest House where Sharon sat with her mother, well wrapped up and with a tiny camping gas fire providing the heat. A little before 8pm, there were flickers and then the light returned. What a relief. We went home and so to bed – with the night light.
The Friday local newspaper reported a lot of anger about the power cut, which lasted 17 hours. In particular, the lack of information about what was happening and when power would be restored annoyed many people. More than 8,000 properties were said to have been affected.
The power did return and we were all reminded of how fragile are the systems that underpin modern life. We are only a big blow away from the darkness.
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