DUNSTER by Candlelight lived up to its name this year when scores of traders and residents found themselves plunged into darkness when the power failed on both Friday and Saturday.

Tills went dead, restaurant kitchens fell silent and businesses were forced to shut up shop at what should have been one of the busiest trading times of the year.

Even National Trust staff at Dunster Castle had to evacuate visitors by torchlight when the lights went out on Friday.

Bizarrely, different businesses were affected at different times over the two days - with some only losing power in certain parts of their businesses.

But, on the whole, traders were determined to look on the bright side and reported brisk business once the electricity was restored.

Mark Murray, of the Stags Head Inn and chairman of the Dunster by Candlelight committee, said a particularly busy Saturday night had helped to compensate for the lost hours of trading.

"I think people coped really well on the whole - Reeves Restaurant was cooking on gas and using candlelight - and I know many businesses, such as the Castle Hotel, lost more power on the Friday than they did on the Saturday.

"It's a big charity event that makes a lot of money for St Margaret's Somerset Hospice so we are keen to get to the bottom of it to make sure it doesn't happen again.

"We are working closely with Western Power as we have to remember it affected many residents as well and we don't want the event to affect their lives any more than it does already," Mr Murray said.

He thanked both traders and residents for their continued support and said the hospice seemed pleased with the results of the two nights of fundraising.

A spokesman for Western Power Distribution confirmed 39 customers, mainly in the High Street area of the village, lost their electricity at 6.50pm on Friday, with power restored at 8.25pm.

She said the company had promised to have an engineer on standby in Dunster on the Saturday night just in case it happened again - but the power went off at 4.50pm, some half an hour before the engineer had been due to arrive.

Supplies were eventually restored to the 20 affected customers at 5.40pm but then went on and off briefly at around 6.30pm.

The spokesman said the power loss had been caused by a "system overload".

"We weren't aware how much they would be putting on as we weren't told about it in advance but we will be looking at it in readiness for next year.

"We tried to do our best and get people back on as quickly as possible and we would like to thank everybody for being so patient," the spokesman said.

Traders and committee members met representatives from Western Power on Wednesday night to discuss the way forward.

Mr Murray said a similar situation had happened back in 2006 and he was hopeful any future hiccups could be prevented by working closely with the electricity company.

David Murray, who runs Dyer's Traits leather goods shop, said he had no idea how much money he had lost as a result of the power failures but said he had literally had to lock customers out of his store.

"I had someone with their card in the machine about to put their PIN in when the lights went out and they couldn't pay for it.

"It did affect people quite badly and we had to ask people to leave.

"We don't know how much it cost us, but as soon as we opened the doors again people came streaming in, so it must have cost us something," he said.

Robin Dasgupta, at the Castle Coffee Shop, also had to turn customers away but managed to keep going - by candlelight.

"We just had to recover the best we could and tried to deal with it by using candles.

"It did restrict people's choices and we couldn't let anybody else in once the power went off as we're all electric.

"Although it was particularly disappointing to lose power the second night as I thought they would have had some sort of contingency plan in place when they knew there had been problems the night before," he said.

National Trust staff had to hand out refunds to visitors who called at the castle for tours and entertainment, after ushering people to the exits using torches.

Charity spokesman Allan King praised staff for doing such a good job and said the castle had lost "significant" numbers of visitors on the Friday.

"It was very unfortunate for the event and for the village as they must have suffered a financial loss and a lot of people work very hard and look forward to it every year," Mr King said.