History?

[bainbrig]

Well in French, une histoire is a story, and it seems the original meaning is creeping in here.

A journalist, Babita Sharma, has currently got her book ‘The Corner Shop” on R4, in which she bangs on about life in England in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s.

Now, as in 1970 I was in my twenties, I can claim some first-hand knowledge of all those decades, and unless I’m going senile, it weren’t like that!

Queues for paraffin at my local shop? Nah. The 70s, a decade plagued by power cuts? Not in London, anyway. The 80s, plunged into deep economic recession? Well, no worse than now.

Turns out Ms Sharma wasn’t born until 1977,

But it makes you wonder just how much history is bull.

BB

[THECORBYLOON]

Perhaps your memory is failing of you were lucky?
"The London Electricity Board devised an unusual way of warning consumers of impending power cuts. From yesterday afternoon it planned to interrupt power for a few seconds five minutes ahead of the rota disconnections. The Electricity Council said that only the LEB system could cope with doing this."

[CrapAtCryptics]

Being of rapidly advancing years also dont remember those issues being anything significant at the time. I guess she`ll have to try a little harder for the Pulitzer.

[aelmpvw]

queues for paraffin? i certainly don't remember that

[fiction-factory]

Power cuts were not uncommon in the 1970s. I remember my parents had candles on standby in the early 70s- probably the Heath years of miners strikes. And the TV finishing early to save on electricity consumption. And I remember power cuts when at university in the late 70s- many hours without coffee made me realise how much some of us depended on caffeine.

[dannyk13]

Never had a power cut in the seventies in Bradford.

[bhg481]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6729683.stm

[fiction-factory]

I'm not sure how the power cuts missed Bradford and London but they were defenitely a big issue in the UK in the early 70s and then late 70s.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1525089/Decade-that-dimmed-the-strike-hit-Seventies.html
But I was young and it was quite exciting. Youngsters (and oldies) couldn't cope now though if it affected broadband, mobile phone signals and games consoles

[vulcan42]

I remember living through those decades. We never had to queue for paraffin, along with milk, coal, groceries and newspapers it was delivered.

[jno]

wasn't paraffin rationed or otherwise restricted in the war? I don't know the details.

There was certainly recession in the 1980s, the fact that there's another one now doesn't alter that.

[naomi24]

It makes me wonder how much memories fail. A time when even dead bodies were left unburied.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_Discontent

[aelmpvw]

i wasn't around during the second world war but wasn't virtually everything rationed?

[tiggerblue10]

I've lived in South London most of my life and I think that we did have a few power-cuts in the 70's. I think my grandmother had paraffin lamps.

Mind you, I was a small child in the 70s so maybe my recollection is very vague.

[vulcan42]

A lot of items were rationed during the war but not paraffin.
" Liquid paraffin
As cooking fats were rationed, oil-based liquid paraffin was used as an alternative in pastry making, frying and cake baking. Its well-known laxative effect was an accepted hazard of the wartime dining room."
From a BBC site.

[THECORBYLOON]

Does the Three-Day Week not ring any bells?

[Jackdaw33]

One of the few things not rationed during the war was bread but it became rationed in 1946. Anyone remember the national loaf?

[fiction-factory]

I'd forgotten the 3 day week. I was at school at the time- I think schools stayed open but I'm not sure. I am sure I remember some football matches being played at different times- eg midweek games during the afternoon rather than at night as floodlights couldn't be used some nights.

[bainbrig]

The 3 day week was largely a publicity stunt by the Heath government.

Power wasn't turned off on the 'off' days - companies (institutions, etc) were sort of 'ordered' not to use electricity on those days - thus excluding hospitals, old Bill, etc.

My boss, an ex-JP, got round it by turning off the lights in the FRONT of his building, while getting all us keyboard operators to move into the back room (no windows), and carry on working. He was something high up in the local Tory party, of course.

There were queues for petrol, of course, and there were occasional power cuts, but nothing much.

And as far as the old lie about dead bodies not being buried, just that, a lie. There were some delays in grave digging etc., but most of it was (wouldn't you have guessed) just hysteria whipped up by the anti-Labour press, then as now.

BB

[jno]

vulcan, as I recall it was restricted to medical use. (Not from personal experience, so I could well be wrong.)

[bhg481]

If people were queueing for paraffin (I can't remember) I think it would be the fuel variety not the medicinal variety.

[Mamyalynne]

Looks a good read, ta.