Workers keep the festive season jolly today

However, for the people who ensure our essential services run smoothly over the festive break, today is just another working day.

Andy Fryer, the shift charge engineer at Rugeley Power Station, has worked more Christmases than he has had off during his 30 years in the business.

"We work in a 24/7 industry, and just because it's Christmas Day makes no difference," he says.

Andy was starting work at 8am today, working through until 3pm when the evening shift was taking over.

"Altogether there will be around 20 of us on site," says the 46-year-old, who lives in the Brocton area of Stafford.

Part of his job is to increase capacity at times when more power is needed, or to reduce output at quieter times. In addition to this, Andy and his team will shut down the second generator in preparation for maintenance. Mike Bosworth, who is in charge of both road gritting and highways maintenance in the Dudley area today,wasis hoping for a quieter time than he had two years ago, when the Black Country was hit by the worst snowfall for many years. "Around 10am there was a call to a road traffic collision in Sedgley, a lady's car hit a wall and it collapsed, so we had to go out and make it all safe," he recalls.

Mike is one of a 25-strong highways team in Dudley who will be on standby for any incidents during the holiday.

It will be the third working Christmas in a row for Darren Mann, an inspector with Severn Trent Water. He is the man responsible for sorting out any leaks, floods or failures in the water supply on Christmas Day.

He is on call for the whole of Severn Trent's western region – taking in Wolverhampton, South Staffordshire, part of Walsall and north Worcestershire – from 2am until 5.30pm. He says it is inevitable he will be called out at some stage.

"It's usually a faulty main," adds the 32-year-old. "I would expect to be working for six or seven hours. We do our best to get problems sorted as quickly as possible.

"We know that a lot of people have big Christmas dinners to prepare, and that they don't want to be without water for long."

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