O/T power cuts and 3 day week around the 1970s

[Brian Gaff]

Another old post, is somebody writing a history? Makes me feel old. Brian

[Dave Liquorice]

12

I think Dad had installed the CH by then, so had gas fire and gas back boiler, cooking was gas. The boiler had a gas pilot light and would run without mains but only on the gravity to loop the HW cylinder, no power for the CH circulation. Not that mattered before the CH one would often get up on a winters morning and suck old pennies to melt spy holes in the frost on the inside of the windows. Candles provided light.

The power cuts were on a rolling rota basis so you didn't get the power cut(s) at the same time everyday. I remember looking for the rota in the evening newspaper and checking how close to the rotaed time the power went, IIRC is was normally within 5 mins and normally late.

I wonder if living through that period is why I find loss of power just a PITA and no reason to turn into a headless chicken. We are prepared though, camping gas lanterns for light, twin ring and small grill gas camping hob, 2 kVA genset to run fridges/freezers and CH...

[spuorgelgoog]

Planned rolling blackouts are easier to cope with than unplanned ones where you don't know if the power will be back on in 20 minutes or still be off 6 hours later.

Owain

[charles]

4 years ago, we had a power "cut" for 4 days. Thankfully, the supply co brought us a generator - at 1 in the morning, though.

[Huge]

1. The only thing I really remember was studying for my 'A' Levels by the light of a Tilley lamp. Can't remember how we cooked or kept warm.

[Huge]

+1

I'd have been glad of that. We were an island of darkness in a sea of light. Once they *finally* came out to us, it took them about 15 minutes to restore supply and the guy said something about making a nuisance of ourselves in future, which I now do.

[charles]

In our case, 5 houses fed by a 1920s (I think) cable. There were 4 generators involved.

The road had to be dug up, cable replaced and the road repaired.

[Tim Watts]

My dad wisely installed a gas fire in the front room. Had a tank of hot water and a paraffin lamp :)

[Huge]

Actually, thinking about it, with a Tilley lamp (one of those ones that runs on evaporated paraffin) in the room, I doubt that keeping warm was a problem. And since my parent were keen caravanners, I expect we had a gas camping stove somewhere.

[Chris J Dixon]

There were a lot of streetlights still with electromechanical timeclocks, so the chance of having power and the light switched on became quite random.

Chris

[Jethro_uk]

When I started with British Gas, Bryanston St, in 1986, they still had the blackout blinds from the 3-day week. As a reserved industry they were exempt, and the police advised fitting blinds so no one could tell. Which was a fascinating glimpse of genuine "truth" through the "Dunkirk spirit" bullshit peddled by the press. (Apparently there was a lot of ill-feeling from people getting 3/5ths wages).

We had a genuine hotline to "Scotland Yard" in the office. Tested weekly ISTR.

[Bob Martin]

[Bob Martin]

Really? I was working at IBM Havant (building mainframes) and we had power for

12 hours (0700-1900) on Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday. There were diesel generators but these were reserved for essential stuff.

[bert]

So did I and we had restricted supplies.

[NY]

I can remember lots of phased power cuts in Leeds. I was at primary school at the time. Different streets had power cuts at different times, so children went to a friend's house or they came to yours for "tea", depending on a) whose turn it was for a power cut, and b) whether or not you had a gas cooker and therefore were unaffected by power cuts as regards having an evening meal.

I'd have guessed that it was earlier than 1972, but it must have been in my final year in Leeds before we moved to Wakefield.

We had a gas cooker and gas fires in the living and dining rooms (in addition to gas central heating which needed electricity) so we escaped fairly lightly - but we did a lot of "entertaining" of friends ;-)

[Cynic]

The local haulage company installed a diesel generator to power the lights in the sorting shed. Workers were supposed to turn off the incoming service isolator before starting it and closing the connection switch. Someone for got and the machine rapidly died trying to power the surrounding town. They came to me so I installed a bfo MEM changeover switch so the the light s could be powered by either mains or expensively repaired generator withou t chance of repetition.

[neaphousemedia]

As an electrician I made some good money during the power cuts of the early 70's installing generators for a well known supermarket chain, great work!! the generators picked up all the refrigeration and tills plus 60% of the lighting etc, a lot of the work at night when the stores where closed, we did 8 stores in all, hard work but very good money, I was in my 20's then and it was like winning the lottery today.

[Steve Walker]

I was just a child, but I remember candles dotted around the house, plus a 12V lamp hung on the wall in the living room, with a car battery on the floor below it and the 12V portable black and white TV from the caravan next to it.

SteveW

[The Other John]

[whisky-dave]

Was it true that during those days-weeks that 9 months later there was a mini baby boom ?