We had electricity on ration, 3 days on, 3 days off (or was it hours?) if memory not deceiving me? Imagine that happening now. WOT, NO TELLY?
Think that was Heath's miners' strike. Thatcher had coal imports lined up and "scab" road hauliers to get it to the power stations. Mining was a horrible, dangerous job that no one could seriously have liked doing, so it was a bit ironic that it was the last stand against de-industrialisation.
I remember a left wing figure, might have been the eloquent Jimmy Reid, saying that those receiving redundancy payments should consider that the jobs aren't theirs to sell, but belong to the community (or words to that effect). In my first school summer job, in a swanky clothes shop, a group of pissed-up steel workers came in to buy new suits etc with their (in those days) pretty substantial dunny pay-offs - so Jimmy's words fell on very deaf ears.
