A POWER cut brought Haslemere High Street to a standstill for two hours on Tuesday. The loss of power occurred when a safety switch was activated in the Chiddingfold area, after problems with an overhead line at around 2 pm. At the time, Southern Electric spokesman Ross Easton said: "First of all, we would like to apologise to customers for any concerns this may have caused. "When an overhead line is affected, this alerts us instantly to anything that has happened, even before people start to ring in. "Engineers are on site and have so far reconnected 1,400 people. They are working as quickly and as safely as possible to get everyone up and running. They are making very good progress." Many shops and business up and down the High Street were left in total darkness, with some operating by candlelight, while others closed. Retailers such as Star Fish were making transactions manually, as they could not swipe for debit or credit card payments. Joe Ball, manager of David's said: "We had the police come in to check on our alarm, which was activated by the power cut." Over at Darnley's Coffee Shop, manager Hamid Khosravani said: "We can cook, as we have a gas hob and gas oven. We can at least make soup, but we cannot make hot drinks." One worry facing retailers was the problem of shoplifters, but many, such as Boots, shut their doors at 2 pm and they were only letting people in to get prescriptions filled. The High Street banks' ATMs were cut off and their doors were closed to the public. A spokesman for Natwest said: "Because of the loss of power, we were unable to operate the computers and it was too dark to make any transactions. The bank closed and the manager was outside to explain the situation to customers." Sharon Ansell, of The Baker's Oven, said: "We will probably lose between £200 and £250, and that's just in takings. We have everything electric, so if you include any stock that we might lose, it could be quite high." By 4 pm, power was restored. Crew manager Andy Gould at Haslemere Fire Station said: "We had no callouts. We thought we might, but on this occasion there was nothing." It was the same story at Surrey Police, where a spokesman said: "There have been no reports, but whether this will change when people return home, we don't know." Melissa King, vice-president of the Haslemere Chamber of Commerce, who also runs Marley Flowers, said: "It was obviously unfortunate and it will undoubtedly have affected trade. We are about a third down from our usual takings. "It's a the time of year when it gets dark early, and it felt like a ghost town." But it was not all doom and gloom at Marley Flowers. Someone kindly offered to eat their refrigerated chocolates if they melted.