Leeds-based Northern Telecom owner drives to Newark to give the gift of a Christmas chat

The owner of telecommunications company drove from Leeds to Newark to personally ensure one of his customers could speak to his family on Christmas Day.

82-year-old Albert Pennells’ landline had developed a fault that couldn’t be fixed until BT Openreach dug up the road outside his home on Heaton Close, and that wasn’t scheduled to take place before Tuesday.

Albert’s phone provider is Northern Telecom, based in Leeds, and its owner and managing director is Jon Graves.

Jon said: “I could see his phone would be down over Christmas. It wasn’t our fault; it was the fault of the old infrastructure, yet there must be something that we could do.

“Albert didn’t have a mobile and couldn’t go and see anybody for Christmas because of the pandemic. I didn’t really want to be the person who meant he couldn’t reach out to anyone on Christmas Day.

“We set to work finding a solution.”

Northern Telecom, which was founded in 2013 and has around 1,000 residential and commercial customers, found the answer.

They ordered a phone that operates with a sim card but is similar to the landline that Albert has at home, meaning he wouldn’t have to grapple with new technology with just days to spare. Albert’s usual number was then diverted to the new phone.

The company liaised with Albert’s next door neighbour Jan, his point of contact for matters of urgency, to make sure Albert was happy.

Albert was, and there remained only one thing to sort ­— how to get it there.

“The phone was delivered to our offices and, with the inconsistencies of the Christmas post, the most sensible thing seemed to be for me to drive it to Albert and show him how it worked,” Jon said: “So that’s what I did. Albert was delighted to see me.

“It’s been a lonely enough world for all of us this year.

“There I had been at my desk looking at the ticket (the record of the unfixed fault) and thinking that I wouldn’t be comfortable if it were my grandma or grandad left unable to talk to anyone on Christmas Day.

“I couldn’t just leave it that way and happily there was a solution.”

Simon Rogers, one of Jon’s employees, was so touched by what he and the company had done that he felt it shouldn’t go unrecognised and reached out to the Advertiser.

“The company I work for (Northern Telecom) has done a really cool thing today and I thought it was worth letting someone know,” Simon said on email.

“Jon Graves the owner of Northern Telecom was so concerned he purchased a special phone that acts like a fixed home phone but uses a mobile SIM and personally delivered it to Albert so that he wasn’t out of contact with people over Christmas.”

Albert said: “Northern Telecom were very good and the MD particularly so. I won’t have a bad word said about the other one, Openreach, either. They gave me a temporary phone too, so I ended up with two.

“I was very pleased with them. It made all the difference being able to speak to my son on Christmas Day. He’s down in Shropshire.

“With this lockdown business, I’d have only been able to be there for a few hours and safer to be at home.”