At around 11pm last night a swathe of Wirral was plunged into darkness as a power outage struck the west of the peninsula in particular.

Supplies in Heswall, Thornton Hough, Neston, Irby, Bromborough and West Kirby were among those affected.

At 2am SP Energy Networks (Scottish Power), the company which owns and operates the electricity transmission and distribution network in Merseyside and Cheshire, tweeted:

"#POWERCUT impacting a widespread area of Wirral - our control room engineers are continuing to determine the cause of the power cut. Field engineers are making their way to site to check local equipment. We will endeavour to have power restored by 2am."

This target proved ambitious. A follow-up tweet said: "Due to the complexity of the power cut, supplies will now be restored in stages from 6am. We apologise for any inconvenience."

They were as good as their word, though the consequences of the cut meant that, at 8am, Tesco Heswall had been unable to open up for the day at its normal time of 7am.

The mobile network appears to have been unaffected in many areas, meaning people illuminated only by candles or their phone screens could share their opinions and observations on social media.

- Any update, and do you pay for all the lost food in my freezer?

- Neston looking creepy!

- Can you keep it off until 0900? I've got a meeting at 0830 that I don't want to join.

- Back on in Neston, well done @SPEnergyNetworks - brought a little excitement to the night. Out of interest, what failed/happened?

- Thank you for getting it back on! I had an interesting trek to the fuse box at 9 months pregnant.

- Hurrah! Kettle on! Thanks guys!

- Get ready for more of this when you all plug in your electric cars overnight.