Food shortages in the 70's recession

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

Cleaver wrote: »

Was that the 1970s or the 1870s?

Might as well have been the 1870s.

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

woodbine wrote: »

that would be the power cuts of the 1970s,oh what joy,electric off while dinner was cooking,no tv for hours on end(bliss),the streets so dark you could see the stars

Very full maternity wards in October and November too,I can testify to that.Nothing else to do I suppose.

A._Badger

I can assure you that panic buying was more a symptom than a cause.

People panicked because the country was out of control and they knew it. Goods would suddenly vanish from the shops, so stocking-up when you could was a perfectly reasonable response.

The cause of all this was party international and partly local. In the early 1970s there were huge international price rises in oil and food (grain prices doubled in the early '70s), but in the UK this was particularly aggravated by militant unionism, inflation, an incompetent government that thought it could spend its way out of trouble and hopelessly bad business management.

Sounds familiar? Some of us have seen this sort of thing before...

nanna_jack

This has brought back some memories :eek:
I was born in 1969, so grew up in the 70's and I remember the strikes, the bread shortage, reading comics by candle light, what fun lol
Weren't the binmen on strike also?

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

and the grave-diggers too,if I remember right.

SingleSue

I remember my mum going for some bread in the shop and the shelves being bare...it was after that, that she started to make her own.

The power cuts, oh how much fun we had...to us little 'uns, it was great fun, an adventure, to the adults, I expect it was a pain in the bum. To this day, I have always made sure I have a stock of candles in the cupboard as a just in case..and they have come in handy too on occasion!

Davesnave

SingleSue wrote: »

I remember my mum going for some bread in the shop and the shelves being bare...it was after that, that she started to make her own.

The power cuts, oh how much fun we had...to us little 'uns, it was great fun, an adventure, to the adults, I expect it was a pain in the bum. To this day, I have always made sure I have a stock of candles in the cupboard as a just in case..and they have come in handy too on occasion!

It was a pain in the bum. I was a student teacher, doing my final practice. Without a candle in sight, I had to use dodgy jars full of paraffin with a string wick pushed through a hole in the top as my essential lighting to mark books & prepare. We were on paraffin heating too, so at least we were semi-warm, but the house must've been a health and safety nightmare!

farmerboy

dandy-candy wrote: »

I have noticed on some of the posts discussing the 1970's recession that people mention remembering food shortages, and I am wondering what was the cause of that? Was it a lack of petrol for the delivery lorries supplying shops or did we have trouble actually importing foodstuffs?

Why would this be problem nowdays, this country's agriculture can produce enough if we're allowed to. But as everyone wants cheap food its imported.

There could be enough sugar produced from beet, but EU quotas don't allow it. PLC greed is importing cheap milk, and other stuff.

Bring on a shortage, because we might realise just how much we don't produce anymore.

LillyJ

Sugar and butter shortages? I'm not sure I'd even notice if bags of sugar and packs of butter disappeared from the shelves all together!

Now tea shortages would be a different matter all together........

Might help the obesity crisis

bo_drinker

James May said on tv last night remember the 70s everything was rubbish. :rotfl: