But now the elderly residents of Mallory Court have said enough is enough.

For they've been without the goggle-box for almost three weeks.

"We were all suffering from television withdrawl syndrome," said Maud Lofthouse, 78, who has been trying to keep her friends' TV fix fed with videos of Some Mothers Do 'Ave Em.

Friend Eileen Warmsley, 79, put it even more bluntly.

"We've been driving each other mad," said the avid Question Time and Panorama fan.

Aerial trouble turned all five channels on the residents' usually crystal-clear screens into an unwatchable snowstorm before Easter.

In less time than it takes for a commercial break, they'd called housing bosses at Macclesfield Town Hall to sort out the problem.

But when it was discovered the replacement aerial and booster would cost £600, the residents were told: 'Do you think we can just afford to pull one off the shelf?'

Promises that the repairman would show became as frequent, and just as dreary, as an episode of EastEnders.

"All over Easter it was dreadful," said 80-year-old Maud Shard. "After three or four days it gets a bit monotonous."

Everyone made the important point that while the telly is a bit of light relief for most people, it's a vital link with the outside world for the many housebound residents of the Mobberley sheltered housing block.

And it's not just the soaps that they love. One resident taped the BBC's Open University programmes for her studies.

Another needed her daily dose of Countdown 'to keep her brain going.'

But the biggest crime committed by the mean-spirited bosses was that their slow actions left the residents, most of whom are ladies, switched-off for one of the biggest sporting weekends of the year.

"I've missed all my tennis," said Mrs Lofthouse. "That match was the match of the century - and I've missed the rugby."

Macclesfield Borough Council insisted that while they did sympathise with their plight, the 'head-end amplifier' was ordered the moment the complaint was lodged.

But because communal aerials are so rare, the council's regular contractor couldn't get it from his usual supplier and it had to be ordered from the manufacturer.

By Friday, though, the censors at Macclesfield Borough Council finally switched it back on.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.