A COUPLE who were left without electricity for almost a week after the October storms have taken their claim for compensation to the energy watchdog Ofgem.

Shirleen and Peter Rogers were one of five households in the village of Himbleton, near Worcester, left powerless for six days when high winds caused damage to a transformer.

Normally, electricity supplier Aquila compensates customers left without power for more than 18 hours.

But it has refused to pay the Rogers because it does not pay out in "exceptional circumstances", such as the storms that swept the country on Sunday, October 27, 2002, leaving more than 13,000 homes in Worcestershire in the dark.

"You can cope for the first couple of days but when it goes beyond that it gets really difficult," said Mrs Rogers.

They survived on soup cooked on a camping gas stove and takeaway food, went through hundreds of candles and had to sleep on the floor by their open fire to keep warm.

Auxiliary nurse Mrs Rogers, aged 50, who was working nights that week, had to ask friends in the village who had power to wash her uniform every day.

The couple, who have two sons at university, said that during the blackout they had found it impossible to get any useful information from Aquila.

"I rang two or three times every day, but I never spoke to a person - it was always a recorded message," Mrs Rogers said.

"On Thursday, we were told our power would come on later that evening, but it didn't come back on until Friday night."

Now they, and more than 1,000 other Midlands householders, have passed their disputes to energy regulator Ofgem.

"It seems a bit feeble now because it is all long-gone," Mrs Rogers said.

"But when you add up the cost of all the things we had to buy, like candles, the camping gas stove and all the gas we used and the takeaway food, we feel we should get some compensation."

A spokesman for Ofgem said determining the disputes was a legal process and would take some time.

- Are you claiming compensation for last autumn's storms? Contact The Evening News at lc@midlands.newsquest.co.uk or on 01905 442254.