The nightmare for Frank McMillan (66) and his wife Grace unfolded as they took their regular delivery of home heating fuel from Johnston's Oil of Bathgate, their regular supplier for over 10 years.

Retired commercial driver Frank, of Douglas, said: "I saw it all
happening.

''Because it wasn't the regular delivery driver, I went out to show him where the tank was at the back of our flower garden and where to run his hose.

''In fact, I'd just stepped over the hose when, suddenly, it burst. It was like a fountain, shooting 50 feet in the air, with oil going everywhere.

''It's pumped in at high pressure and so it shot out with such a force that it hit our garden fence and just ricocheted back off it, spreading everywhere.

"I know from a friend in the fire service that, when their high-pressure hoses burst, there is an automatic cut-off.

''However, there didn't seem to be anything like that on this tanker and the stuff just kept coming out.

''My neighbours' gardens got hit too, though not as badly.

"My garden's ruined now and I'd only recently entered it in the village Garden of the Year competition!

"At first, I was told the tanker gauge showed that 45 litres of oil had spilled into the garden; now I'm told it was 196 litres!"

The spill sparked off emergency action by a string of agencies; the fire brigade and health and safety personnel were on site until midnight last Tuesday.

Since, the council's environmental health department and the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) have become involved too, fearing pollution to the burn at the back of Frank's garden.

Frank said that Johnston's sent out a representative along with a landscape gardener at the weekend to inspect the damage.

He said the professional gardener dug down and found oil pollution as deep as two feet, so the whole garden will have to be dug to that depth and the polluted soil disposed of by the oil supply company.

Frank just hopes that the work will be done properly and promptly.

But he has not been impressed by the company's attitude so far; he said the manner of his two visitors at the weekend was not sympathetic.

He said: ''One of them tried to say that there wasn't much wrong with the garden! I couldn't believe it.''

Frank is also worried as Johnston's has told him there may be delays with paperwork and finding a legal dumping ground for the tons of polluted soil it will have to take away and dispose of.

No date has been given as to when the firm's promised restoration of his garden will start.

The Gazette contacted Johnston's Oil about Frank's concerns this week but no-one was available to comment.

Perhaps, ominously, the holding music on the firm's telephone
system as we waited in vain to talk to a spokesperson was the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want".