IN 1974, coal shortages forced Britain to move to a three-day working week. As that prospect looms again, Britons remember those times entirely inaccurately:
Roy Hobbs, aged 77, retired refuse operative
“It was the harshest winter in decades. I was on strike for a 40 per cent pay increase, which wasn’t much in those days, and the rubbish was piled in towers in the snow-choked streets. Gravediggers were striking so the frozen dead were just left at bus stops. A rat was made mayor. No, wait, I’m thinking of the Winter of Discontent. Shit.”
Susan Traherne, aged 54, swimming instructor
“I was just a girl but I remember huddling up in blankets and reading by candlelight, burning each page of the book as I finished because we needed the heat. ‘Hurry up’, my dad said as I tore through Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Luckily it was crap.”
Norman Steele, aged 82, retired butcher
“The restrictions meant Arsenal played at 2.15pm on a Tuesday, TV ended at 10.30pm, and Princess Anne married Captain Mark Phillips at 4am to discourage the nation from celebrating. British summertime was extended until December exhausting our reserves, so from January to March we only had two hours of daylight per day. They were such happy times.”
Margaret Gerving, aged 95, retired headmistress
“With only three days to a week you’d go to sleep on Wednesday and wake up on Monday morning. None of the days was a weekend, to increase productivity, and if you weren’t given the same days as your husband you simply didn’t see him. I believe the spare days were sold to Australia.”
Nathan Muir, aged 35, right-wing hairdresser
“I remember it was all Labour’s fault for giving in to the miners which is why they were on strike. We’d joined the EEC on condition we crippled our world-beating economy and most of Northern Britain had turned to cannibalism. Then Thatcher came in and saved everyone. I wasn’t alive but that’s what happened.”
Denys Finch Hatton, aged 69, historian
“It was two f**king months. Literally, start to finish. The last lockdown lasted longer. It happened 47 years ago. Can we not just move the f**k on?”
