Hi all, Can anyone remind me about the power cuts in the 1970s please?
Did the power cuts begin in September 1972 ? Were they They3 hours on & 3 hours off ? Then the 3 day week began in January in 1974 ?
I live on the Isle of Wight, but they were all over the UK I think?
Mick.
(I was like 4-5 at the time)...
4-6 hours off I think. Certainly not 4 on, 4 off. More like "mostly on, but 4-6 off perhaps a few times a week.In Surrey, near outer London, I remember going around town with my mum on her daily shopping trip and she would stop by the SEEBOARD shop and check the poster in the window that carried the rota of power cuts.
The bloke in the hardware shop was doing a nice line in paraffin lamps (we had one).
Wikipedia should give you the dates.
Experiences in other parts of the country may have been very different.
I don't know the date, but trying to associate it with which school year I think I was in, I would have guessed before then.
Just 3 hours off. Next one would be a day or two later. Initially they blipped the supply about a minute in advance of a power cut to warn you, but then timetables were published in the press.
Yes, but some areas weren't hit. My school was in same area as a hospital and was exempt on the basis that the hospital was protected from the cuts.
Yes I was working then, and had to work Saturdays if the cuts were rotated to clobber the usual days. Although we had a generator, it could not cope with all the factory making TVs particularly the large conveyors and power tools etc, such as solder baths. Brian
ISTR here around Cambridge we had three hours off on the days when we were affected. There was a low/medium and high risk rating for the days concerned.
However all that did was to speed up the design of a 12 volt inverter so we kept the lights on at least;)..
Plus the TV on a good "all batteries charged" day..
Power cut rotas were published in places including the local newspaper.
Late 1973.
They were four hour powers cuts, with a minimum of eight hours between cuts in the same area, which allowed most emergency lights to recover. In practice, the minimum period between power cuts was usually at least
12 hours. Some areas with essential services, such as hospitals, were exempt, although, where possible, engineers would be sent out to cut power to the area around the essential service manually. The Electricity Board I was working for at the time had plans for a large 24 hour call centre to handle enquiries, but the Trade Unions insisted that only people already working in the Press Office could answer enquiries, which reduced that to two, rather busy, people during office hours only.
I then worked in a laboratory with a hospital nearby. We had no actual cut s, but everything except computers and essential equipment had to be off. But I had an Elliott 905. By loading -1 into the accumulator and displayin g that on the console lights, and having a paper tape reader ready on the 9
05, and internal fluorescent tubes in the ASR33, I could still see quite we ll enough to do useful work even during external dark.
SWEB? Terry Pratchett was a press officer for CEGB South West Region at the time, ISTR
In message , "Nightjar "@?.?.invalid> writes
We ran a hired generator to cover every power cut. I remember having to find and use the one petrol station in the area that still had a pump with attachable handle to provide fuel.
I wonder if any petrol stations still have pumps like this?
I started in Sainsburys as a Saturday job in 1982. When I was being till trained, it was on the first generation of fully electronic tills. Apparently the previous generation were electro-mechanical. When there was a power cut, every checkout girl would be sent an assistant from the shop floor to pull the handle in between entries. There was one student doing a PHd who actually remembered it happening !
Mick IOW scribbled...
The DVLA offices in Swansea are on top of a hill that can be seen for miles and across the Bristol channel in England. Their lights never went off, even at night when the place was shut. It was like a single finger up to the rest of the country.
They might have had their own generator. Many places did.
When I started work at British Gas HQ in the 80s, they still had fixings for the blackout blinds they had been told to put up during power cuts (they were exempted). Apparently there was some unrest with certain places being able to stay open while others had to shut.
That's pretty much the DLVA for you...
Me too.
I remember my Dad taking me to sit in the Cortina to listen to his radio (or did he have a cassette player then?) - he certainly had beer. My Mum was on nights. Once I had fallen to sleep I was taken back inside to bed.
I was trying to revise for my 'A' levels by the light of a Tilley lamp.
A-Levels? You old person! ;->
I was just getting to grips with the Beano...
I was at a boarding school. On power cut evenings, we would have a film projected in the main school hall. Of course, that needed power.
A *very* long extension lead from the headmaster's house with a variable transformer to tweak the voltage back up.
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