On Wed, 08 Oct 2003 19:11:53 GMT, (maddening)
wrote:

An update on this for those who are interested .......

We called out an electrician and took him to the barn where the meter
is located. The cables there are in somewhat of a mess, kind of
'draped' on the walls, rusty, decomposing fuse box, etc.

Anyhow, he picked up the wires (remember, they are looped and hanging
in garlands from the wall!) and the neutral literally fell out of the
meter! Power went off too (understandably).

The ends of the neutral (remember, this cable is about half an inch
thick, multi-cored) were not only charred but also partly welded
together, so given the ease with which it fell out it's no wonder that
we had power problems!

Western Power were called out and made everything good, but we're now
going to invest in some re-wiring in that area given the awful state
that it's currently in.