ON Thursday January 16 I was being served by the manager at W H Smith when the lights went out and all shoppers were instructed to: "leave immediately by the front door."

As we all trooped out into the street I observed that all other stores had done the same thing. Clearly a contingency plan had been put into operation... that was 3.55pm. When I got home, I alternated listening between two local radio stations, from before 5 until after eight. I also watched the local news on television both the BBC and ITV as well as scanning Ceefax and Teletext - there was not a word. The Lancashire Evening Post mentioned the story but was completely uninformative and I suspect , deliberately so. Sceptical as I am, if we admit for a moment that the power cut was due to some accident, as opposed to a deliberate cut off, what were the circumstances of the accident? Who caused it and how and where? and why did it take four hours to fix it? None of the other local papers found room to give it a mention. I can't believe that this was of such little interest to local news organisations and strongly suspect that someone in authority ordered the power cut and imposed a news blackout. The question is who and why? There was an immediate, strong police presence in the town all on their mobile phones. I suspect that someone said: "don't alarm the public" well I am part of that public and I am alarmed. Partly at what happened with no explanation and partly because someone can do this with no accountability.

David Fuller

Balmoral Road

Lancaster

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.