A Langlee resident has claimed that he is living in limbo because lazy council workers have refused to come out and move his clocks back almost TWO WEEKS after the rest of Britain.

  Desperately depressed, Alan sent a text message to his close friend Ecky Doull and told him he would call him at eleven o clock to discuss his predicament. Only to find that when he did phone him he had already gone to bed.

  "I don't cry very often," he said. "But that night i cried until there were no tears left. Then i cried some more. I'd lost the two most important people in my life - the person i love with all my heart and who i'd literally die for. And as if that wasn't bad enough i'd also lost my wife."

  It was by sheer fluke that Alan managed to get to the bottom of what was happening to him.

  "I'd arranged to meet someone in the pub but he was already gone by the time i got there. I happened to glance at my watch and noticed that the time on it didn't correspond with the time on the clock behind the bar."

  It slowly dawned on him that the rest of Britain had moved their clocks BACK while he HADN'T.

  "I was an enormous relief to finally understand what was going on. I phoned my wife at her friend's but she was at the shops and her pal told me to phone back at 9 that night because she was going to bed at exactly 9.15."

  His wife had aready turned in when he phoned so the next morning Alan phoned Scottish Borders Council to have his clocks moved back to the correct time.

  He was told to visit their head office in Newtown at 5pm that night but found the building closed and all the lights off when he got there.

  "That's happened four times now - i'm appalled by their lack of concern."

  A spokesman for the council said last night: "We've tried to arrange a meeting with Mr. Armstrong but he's either late or turns up after we've closed. It's quite simple to move the clocks back yourself. There's usually a little button on the back. However, if it's a digital clock or one on a DVD player or something, i would advice looking up the instruction manual."

  But Alan said: "I'm not a scientist. I pay my council tax and i just want my life back. My wife is still away and Ecky isn't talking to me. And i've given up on Coronation Street. How hard can it be to come out and change someone's clocks back? Come on Scottish Borders Council - get your fingers out!"

Alan Armstrong, (55) alleges that he has made over

20 phone calls to the council without success and reveals that he was forced to make an appointment

at the doctor to be put on anti-depressants but was an HOUR late and he refused to see him.

  Speaking from his Langlee home last night, Mr. Armstrong said: "It's been a nightmare from start to finish. It's as though i'm living in some sort of parallel universe but the council don't seem to want to do a damn thing about it."

  Alan first noticed something was wrong around two weeks ago: "My wife told me on the Saturday night that breakfast would be ready the following morning at ten o clock.

  "I came down at ten only to find that my wife had already eaten her breakfast and was in the middle of doing the crossword in the Sunday Mail.

  "We both looked at each other dumbfounded. Neither of us could understand what had happened."

  Things only got worse during the following days as Alan missed every episode of Coronation Street and was almost THROWN OUT by his wife for being late for his tea five days in a row.

  "My wife was livid with me and i tried to explain that something strange was happening that i didn't fully understand but she didn't really believe me."

  His wife arranged a summit meeting in the living room of their plush semi-detached house in Langlee to try and save their marriage, but ended up packing some belongings into a bag and going to stay with a friend after Alan turned up an hour late for it.

  "On her way out she told me to phone her at precisely eight o clock that night, not a minute early or a minute late, to prove to her that i wanted to save our marriage.

  "She stipulated that it HAD to be eight o clock on the dot - exactly - that i phoned, or she would assume that we were finished and would begin divorce proceedings.

  "I don't think i've ever heard her so angry than when i phoned at 9 o clock. She hung up on me."