I miss the Yorkshire Water's brass band while holding on

I used to quite enjoy being on hold with Yorkshire Water - I quite enjoyed the upbeat music by the Yorkshire Co-op Brass Band that was for many years piped down the line to hangers-on.

That’s not what hit me as I waited this time. Instead my eardrum was assaulted by a very loud rendition of the Human League’s ‘Don’t You Want Me Baby?’ I spent a good five minutes listening to ’Don’t you want me, oh, oh, oh, oh…’ This was followed by an equally raucous ‘Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, do ya, do ya, do ya, do ya…’ from either the Kaiser Chiefs of a reasonably similar imitation.

It then played something slightly more palatable that I couldn’t identify. It’s a good job I wasn’t waiting for long before the call was answered, otherwise I’d have felt inclined to abandon it.

I don’t often ring Yorkshire Water so I don’t know know when the change took place, but I cannot understand why they changed a jolly form of music associated with the county they represent to this hideous compilation.

Maybe it’s to discourage people from holding on.

You don’t often get songs as hold music, it’s usually repetitive, instrumental tunes that are tolerable for five minutes, irritating after ten and drive you mad after 20. If you’re ringing about a problem, you end up growing even more angry and frustrated.

Whenever I’m placed on hold I can’t even put the phone on loudspeaker and get on with doing something useful : when I bought the landline handset I forgot to check whether it offered that service and then it was too late to change it.

I try to avoid using my mobile as I suffer from tinnitus and am convinced it makes the condition worse. So I’ve no option but to glue the handset to my one good ear until someone answers.

I don’t know why companies don’t use holding sounds that could help callers relax as they wait - birdsong, ocean waves, that sort of thing.

Birdsong would be a calming sound to listen to. Picture: Pixabay

A study carried out for South Western Railways by the University of Oxford found that sounds from nature such as birds chirping, waterfalls and rainfall made people less stressed.

They asked commuters to listen to a selection of nature sounds as well as their regular audio such as music and podcasts, and record their feelings.They all reported feeling calmer when listening to nature.

The dawn chorus might have eased the frustration suffered by Paul Donovan who in 2015 was kept on hold by BT for 14 hours.

I suppose any music is better than silence, when someone has actually answered then gone off to speak with a manager and failed to return.

You’ve no idea when, or if, they are coming back.

You cling blindly to those occasional messages - ‘your call is important to us...’To my mind, if they keep you waiting for more than ten minutes, it can’ t be that important.

I am not alone in missing Yorkshire Water’s brass band. I found this on the website Mumsnet: ‘Is there any such thing as good hold music? I work in a job where I have to spend a large portion of my day phoning companies and therefore listen to a LOT of hold music/endless menu options/inane stuff. I don’t mind it so much when I am being paid to do it but when it’s for myself it drives me up the wall.

‘The one exception I found to this was Yorkshire Water when they used to have a brass band playing ‘Mambo No. 5’ which was really cheerful. Unfortunately they’ve done away with it.’

Bring back the brass, that’s what I say. I might even start a petition.