Can you tell me what it was like in the 1970's recession?

Pobby

My managing director, hardly poor with a Merc sports and Roller on the drive wore catalogue trousers that his misses bought him. The best sort of boss to work for in a recession. Very generous.

amcluesent

Not very many people of colour about of course and I don't believe anyone outside of London knew what a Muslim was.

Lifeisbutadream

I wonder what our children will remember from this recession?

My DD did a 'My hopes' calender. This is what she put on it:

I hope the Credit Crunch will end
I hope my Dad wont have to go out to work as much


I had to explain to her that unfortunately you cant have both...:o

Grade_A_Reject

mvengemvenge wrote: »

If you mean the mid-70's, I remember all the blackouts and having candles everywhere.

If you mean the one that started 79/80, that was a terribly, terribly depressing period. I think 80/81 were the most depressing years of my life. On the other hand, if you were a hooray Henry, it was the start of your 'greed is good' decade.

I actually liked the power cuts. What better to get the family sat around talking instead of staring zombie-like at a TV. I was born in 65 so the financial effects gladly slipped by me.

I remember during the power cuts the ladies in the local chippy (most chippies were English then) peeling spuds by candlelight and frying them on the gas powered ranges.

sb44

Lifeisbutadream wrote: »

Ahh green sheild stamps...

I remember my mum getting a hairdryer with them - we were all so excited that we all (me and two bros) sat watching her dry her hair!

I think mine bought one of those food slicers that had a big revolving blade and you turned the handle to spin the blade and cut the meat.

Grade_A_Reject

sb44 wrote: »

I think mine bought one of those food slicers that had a big revolving blade and you turned the handle to spin the blade and cut the meat.

Lol, my dad still has his. He was also Ronco's no1 customer. Electric scissors......a "buttoneer" that attached buttons to shirts with a plastic tag like you get on shop labels etc. I think Ronco were the predecessors to JML. Useless slicing and dicing stuff that people would buy if you stuck it in their face enough times. :rolleyes:

Thrugelmir

Generali wrote: »

There was a boom in 1973, blamed on the 1972 budget. This caused inflation to rise and a series of strikes to break out in late 1973. Then in 1974 the Arabs refused to sell oil to the US and to supporters of Israel. This lead to a severe shortage of fuel and a spike in the fuel price.

The 3 day week was a result of that as there wasn't enough oil to generate the fuel needed to keep the lights on. Petrol ration cards were issued but never had to be used.

Interest rates went up to 13% to control inflation and rents were frozen by Government diktat. Not a good time to be a landlord!

There were a lot of strikes culminating in the miners, power workers and railwaymen striking with the aim of bringing down the Conservative Government, an aim that succeeded. That brought in possibly the most calamitous democratically elected Government the UK has had.

Although petrol ration cards were issued but never used. Petrol was in short supply. At the time I had a Saturday job working in a garage on the forecourt manning the pumps. We used to ration non account customers to 4 gallons (around 9 litres in todays metric measures). Those customers who had business or personal accounts where allowed to fill up! If we reached a 1,000 gallons in the storage tanks we only supplied account customers. Being a staff member had advantages in those days! However there were occassions that we ran out of fuel for 2/3 days. There were days that I was sent home or worked cleaning the showroom cars as there was no fuel to sell.

Being British. We didn't complain and just got on with life. People shared lifts to work so a lack of fuel wasn't unmanageable. Though we probaly travelled far fewer miles in those days.

Grade_A_Reject

MrsE wrote: »

I remember 3 channels & TV starting in the morning & finishing by midnight.
I remember the advent & excitement of channel 4, breakfast TV & then all night TV:D

BBC used to come on around 3pm for the kids TV then "shutdown" around midnight with the national anthem.
I stayed up all night for the one off "all-night" TV thing on Channel 4. It was pretty ground breaking stuff at the time.

mumps

amcluesent wrote: »

Not very many people of colour about of course and I don't believe anyone outside of London knew what a Muslim was.

Now I know I was in a parallel universe. I started school in 1958, two years later we moved house and I started at a school where white kids were in the minority. I remember about the same time there was a big sign up where they built the Birmingham Central Mosque showing how much money they had raised to build the mosque. My mother used to say every time they had got some money together there would be a disaster somewhere and they would donate the money. Think they eventually built the mosque in the early 70s but it could have been late 60s. I'll see if I can find a link, but in birmingham we definitely knew what Muslims were in the 70s.

Our nextdoor neighbours were Jamaicans. Top of the street the old mission hall was bought by Sikhs to convert to temple. This was the 60s.

Just checked, it was built in 1969.

bo_drinker

I was born in 63 and remember my mother collecting green shield stamps and filling the book. Did anyone ever get enough to buy the car in the catalogue, Austin 1100 if I am correct. We didn't have that many blackouts down here though. Spoke to my mother today about the recessions (she's 74) and she said she didn't ever remember anything as bad as this and how it is all happening so fast, it's frightening. If any of the younger readers on here can watch Boys from the black stuff(there are snippets on youtube) it is worth watching.