I had only posted my letter to the CEO of BT Openreach on Tuesday morning (and to my blog Monday evening). But later that same morning I received a phone call from an engineer in the Galaheilds office. He had heard I needed a line installed and was passing by when in Fort William the next day and would pop in to see the site. 

I was somewhat flummoxed. How on earth could my letter (not yet picked up from the post box, and my blog (tweeted to my modest Twitter following ) receive such an immediate response? I called Stephen the builder who I’d called previously to see whether he had the local number ‘Oh you’ll never get that number’ but he’d also said he knew one of the local engineers and would check with him what was going on.  He hadn’t yet spoken to his contact, so he wasn’t responsible for the miraculous movement. 

  Ten minutes later I found out when the next door neighbour (also a self build) called me to ask about how I was getting on with openreach. Her son had seen the blog and she had called Openreach’s emergency line before 8am to ask that the line they have been waiting on for months got installed at the same time. 

It had an immediate effect. Men on the ground in 24 hours. They arrived, and our very dedicated electrician was there to receive him on, what proved to be, a flying visit. He dropped some cable and was gone. 

I emailed the engineer and heard nothing. When I checked my emails I had received a posting on my blog from Anon (email nope@anon.com …?!) but posted from a BT server with this website 

Appearing to give the magic number I was supposed to be calling. For Scotland this number happens to be  0800 141 2650 I called it. Held on until a recorded voice clicked on it told me the number was for builders and developers only – well includes self-builders too… So I held on past a few more rings. Then the voice clicked on again. 

‘The person you are calling cannot take your call right now and there is no voicemail.’

Oh

To be continued….