A HUGE power cut which left the majority of Crow Country in darkness on Monday night was caused by a “fault.”

EDF Energy Networks were reluctant to give too many details of why the loss of power occurred, causing inconvenience and distress to thousands.

The company issued an apology on Tuesday, which read: “EDF Energy Networks would like to apologise to several thousand customers in the Stevenage area who lost power supplies at 10.27pm on Monday night (30 August) after a fault at a major substation.

“Our engineers worked as quickly and as safely as possible to restore supplies. The first customers had power again within 15 minutes with all supplies back on, in stages, by 11.51pm.”

The power cut affected towns as far as Stevenage, Letchworth, Hitchin, Baldock and Biggleswade, while Royston and many of its surrounding villages were plunged into darkness.

Andrew Fowler of Shepreth said: “Trying to get through to them (EDF Energy) last night was a major disaster.

“We had gone to bed and there were no torches to hand. I then foolishly reached for the light switch before remembering the thing doesn’t work.

“We went back to the stone age for half an hour.”

Keith Edwards of Steeple Morden said: “I was half way through making my Horlicks and the kettle went off. I had to have it cold which was annoying.

I went to bed but I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t set my alarm, which is plugged in electronically. I lost lots of sleep over it.”

Nadine Gooding of Royston said: “It was like being in a cave. It went cold very quickly and there was little to do to pass the time.

“I managed to find some candles and we huddled round those for the best part of an hour.”

Steve Rickman of Fowlmere said: “The power was off for over an hour. When you have hours of programmes saved on your television box and they get erased, it is very frustrating, especially as there is nothing that can be done about it.”

Eric Gurney of Ashwell said: “Me and my wife were in bed, and one of our televisions was on standby. We woke up to find that it had been turned on.

We looked at each other in schok and wondered who did it, then we realised it was a power cut.

Mrs Janice Baker of Barkway, which avaoided major disruptions, said: “We were watching a very scary bit of Miss Marple and the lights flickered, luckily they didn’t go off though.”

Mrs Jennie Mutty of Melbourn said: “We had no option but to go to bed. It prevented us from watching trashy television so it wasn’t all bad.”

Were you affected by the power cut? Let us know here at The Crow by emailing news@royston-crow.co.uk.