Gas leak reporting

Many years ago we lived in a big old house and now and again smelt a slight whiff of gas in our hall. One year we came back from holiday and the smell was quite strong so I said as I had a day off at home I would ring British Gas.

They came round, examined everything, couldn't find any sign of a leak, until as a leaving thought, they put a probe down a drain in our cellar. The next minute everything became serious. It seemed the gas reading on the probe was high and that meant the leak was in the gas main in the road.

We lived on the corner of a narrow main road leading into the centre of town. There was another road close by, but that was closed for road works. The gas main ran down the centre of the road. As the repairs would take some time, overnight British Gas opened all the manhole covers and put barriers round them.

With both roads into town from one direction, more or less closed, the rush hour chaos the following morning made headlines in the local newspapers and I heard people talking about it weeks later. Our bedroom overlooked a major junction and I can still feel that frisson of power (and awe) as I looked at the chaos and thought 'I caused all that with one phone call'.

When I was working in a factory canteen, we reported a strong smell of gas in our kitchen store cupboard. We were red faced on being told that the smell was garlic, emanating from the boxes of dried soup on the shelves!

We have reported the smell of gas, it was soon after the replacement of gas pipes all along the road. Little did we know at the time that several of our neighbours reported the smell too. They came out straightaway and were working most of the night to fix whatever was wrong.

I've reported stuff online it seems to work ok.

We have only done it once. It was in our road. They duly came out and then advised us that we didn't know the difference between s---t and gas it was a blocked drain. Oh dear.

No you don't really do you - very public spirited