The village broadband cut out on Thursday evening at approximately 19:42, just as the weekly bingo at the Community Hall was about to call its forty-third number. By the time engineers arrived on Friday morning, three callers had walked home in the dark and one had returned with what she described as 'a new outlook on mortality'.

An engineer from the regional provider, who asked not to be named, said the outage was 'almost certainly the rooks again'. The rooks of St Edith's tower have been implicated in seven of the eleven outages this year. Two have been attributed to badgers. The remaining two are 'under review'.

Local cafe owner Yves Galtier said his contactless terminal had been out for three days and he was 'losing his sense of who he served, and in what order'.

The provider has offered each affected household a £4 credit and 'sincere good wishes for the autumn'.