The centre is responsible for maintaining energy supplies to more than two million properties across Yorkshire.

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As control operations manager for YEDL it is Kevin Gaskell's job to ensure we can cook our Christmas dinners and that the lights on our trees stay on.

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The 54-year-old is married to Theresa and has two sons, Paul, 28, and Craig, 27.

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"I remember many occasions when I've settled down to my Christmas dinner only for the phone to ring and I've had to go out and 'put the lights on', as we call it, for someone else.

My wife hasn't always been too happy about that – particulary when the boys were younger – but it's quite fulfilling when you get thank you from a little old lady for getting her electricity back on.

"I remember being called out to Pontefract one Christmas Day when they had lost their supply and people were coming out with mince pies and inviting me into their homes.

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"Not everyone is so friendly though. Another year I went out to a cul-de-sac in Garforth where some of the houses had lost their electricity.
I was telling one guy trying to cook his Christmas dinner that we couldn't restore the supply immediately but I would stay on site until it was. He turned round and said, 'Too right you are' and locked the front door.

This was before mobile phones so I couldn't even tell anyone I was trapped there.

"I tried to explain to him that I wouldn't be able to get his electricity back on if I was stuck in his house but it was only after his wife and brother intervened that he would let me out again.

"The best piece of advice I've ever been given is not to jump to conclusions.

"Often there will be a power cut but we won't know what has caused it until someone tells us what has happened.
Customers think we have a little red light that goes off when they lose their electricity but we don't.

"We rely on them to ring up and give us all the details they can so we can diagnose what needs to be done.

"Animals can cause us all sorts of problems, from squirrels leaping on to poles and shorting the power equipment to having to shut down the supply so the fire brigade can rescue cats stuck at the top of them.

"We've also discovered over the years that cows and horses like nothing better than rubbing themselves against the poles, which causes the cables to clash and make people's lights flicker.

"We often end up having to put up fences round the poles to keep them away.

"Some people's meters are located in very strange places, especially in the older houses.

"One New Year's Eve me and a colleague were called out to a house in South Emsall where there was a party in full swing.

"Most of them were slightly worse for wear and when we got to the meter we found it was in an upstairs bedroom where one of the blokes was fast asleep.

"We ended up having to reach over him to get to this meter. He never woke up though. I don't think he even knew the electricity had gone off.

"Winter is the hardest time for us because of the weather conditions.
The cables on the poles are designed to swing in synch in the wind so they don't hit each other and cause a power cut.

"But when they freeze their weights change and they swing out of synch which can be a major problem.
The field engineers definitely earn their money at this time of year.
They use safety belts to climb up the poles but one guy's froze to it in a blizzard and two others had to go up to get him down.

"They don't earn any overtime for working Christmas Day and it's the same with everyone in the control centre.
We work shift patterns and it's 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. There is no overtime here.

"The thing that might surprise people about me is that I coached the cricketer Darren Gough before he played for Yorkshire and England.
He used to live a couple of doors down from us in Monk Bretton near Barnsley and was a cracking little sportsman.

"His dad asked if he could get a game at the local cricket club so we got him down and I started coaching him.
By the time he was 12 he knew exactly what he was doing and you couldn't tell him anything.

"He's got so much confidence that he was always going to go somewhere.

"To relax I like to go walking and running, as well as playing sport.
I took up golf a few years ago and every year we have an annual tournament in memory of my friend John Rodgers, from Pontefract, who I trained with.

"We've raised £15,000 so far for the British Heart Foundation and Pontefract Special Care Baby Unit.

"I'd like to meet quite a few people, including Nelson Mandela, Muhammad Ali, Billy Connelly and Agatha Christie.

"I've started doing a little bit of watercolour painting so I would love to meet Michaelangelo. He was an architect and engineer as well as an artist, he must have been an amazing guy.

"The best thing about Yorkshire is that it's Yorkshire – there is nowhere else quite like it.

"I always said that if I moved away I would move back when my sons were born so that they could play cricket for Yorkshire.
You've got everything here, from the countryside to the coast, and the people are fantastic.

"I do have some good friends in Lancashire but I still think of it as the dark side."