1974: HARTLEPOOL and the THREE-DAY WEEK | Nationwide | World of Work | BBC Archive

Just a few weeks into the government's energy-saving measures were introduced, Nationwide's Philip Tibenham reports from Hartlepool. What effect is the three-day working week having on the lives of the town's residents and workers.
Clip taken from Nationwide, originally broadcast on BBC One, 18 January, 1974.
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[@analogueman123456787]

For everyone who lived through the Three Day Week (I was a kid at the time), it's something we'll always remember. And yet it only lasted for ten weeks, from the start of '74 until the first week of March. It was essentially a 'state of emergency' in all but name.

[@paultaylor7082]

I was 20 then, although I'm from Manchester, I was working 170 miles away in King's Lynn, Norfolk. Our factory was a chemical one, continuous process, so we got 65% of power. I worked Monday to Friday, our hours were changed from 9 am to 5 pm with one hour lunch, to 8.30 to 4 pm with a half hour lunch, in order to save power. At my home of the time, shared with another co worker, we seemed to avoid most of the power cuts. I was only there for 5 months, from September 1973 to early February 1974, I came back to Manchester on Friday 8 February 1974, in the middle of 3 day week period, the day after Ted Heath called the General Election, held just 3 weeks later on 28 February

[@JohnHonda101]

Yep, I was 9 years old.

[@fburton8]

How bad do you remember it to be? I was 12yo at the time and my memories were generally good (I have perhaps one memory of doing homework by candlelight), but that may have been because I was shielded by the positivity or stoicism of my parents.

[@danielwarren3138]

Yeah, my dad never stopped going on about it like it went on for a decade, not three months.

[@thedave7760]

@@fburton8 There is one thing missing in the upbringing of our next generations and that is Stoicism. Very few young ones get any type of dose as to how to get by without things they want.

[@fuccasound3897]

I am proud to say i was brought up in that area of the world, and we liked to keep up the idea that it was 'grim up north' so we kept the the softy southerners away from our quiet beaches, beautiful moors and wildlife filled salt marshes. Also you can tell Hartlepool folk inspired a lot of Vic and Bob's comedy characters . The people of the North East of England; quietly philosophical about every situation and often madly surreal at the same time.

[@Pyjamarama11]

oy ! You looking at my bra, like ??

[@houseoffry3204]

Here here

[@andymerrett]

Sadly the image of both Northerners and Southerners is a lot to do with the media and government, and not many of the ordinary people. Hyperbole, division and stretching of the truth is not a new thing.

[@andymerrett]

5:49 Definitely something of Bob here. :)

[@fuccasound3897]

@@andymerrett Yes BBC painted a pretty grim picture here, i thought it was amusing that the interviewee's didn't choose to rise to the 'you must be having an awful time in this awful place' questioning.

[@fburton8]

There was perhaps a feeling then that pretty much everyone was in the same boat and having to make sacrifices, whereas today some people are really struggling while others are doing very nicely thank you.

[@andymerrett]

I am sure there were plenty of people doing very nicely back then as well.

[@haralamc]

Its great that now days we only have to work 5 days a week to stay at home and cut back

[@paultaylor7082]

Takings down £10 a day in the shop. To put that into perspective, the average wage full time then was around £40 to £50 a week for a 40 hour unskilled job, before deductions. The £31 mentioned would probably be take home pay, gross pay around £40 to £45 a week. Around that time, beer was around 15p to 17p a pint.

[@Nick-io9uk]

They were still paying textile workers in nottingham 29p an hour in the late 80s! That kind of exploitation was rare, but before the minimum wage not just the preserve of sweatshops employing illegals. And the factory manager had the gall to say 'we keep advertising for more staff, but no one applies!' Some things never change, i guess.

[@Costa_del_Artlepool]

It makes you wonder how we've all been duped into accepting this terrible financial system.

[@paultaylor7082]

Ah, the Good Old Days, a shortage of coal resulting in limited electricity supllies, where half the factories worked Monday to Wednesday, the other half Thursday to Saturday. Football matches played in the early afternoon, to save using floodlights, also in some cases on Sundays, as many were working all day Saturday. Working by candlelight and frequently with no heating, as the electricity supplies were subject to disruption. Still we had Mud's Tiger Feet and Suzi Quatro's Devil Gate Drive at Number during that period, one of the few times a certain Gary Glitter didn't have a Number One, although he had 3 in total, 'Leader of the Gang, I Love You Love (both 1973) and Always Yours (June 1974). I wonder where he is now..

[@prun8893]

Hang on folks. Mrs. Thatcher is just around the corner to save the UK.

[@tonypaddler]

😁🤣🤣🤣 but really 😱🤬😭😭😭

[@Take_Me_Back_To_The_1980s]

Funny I remember the 1990s being a lot better than the 1970s

[@nigellee9824]

I was 24 when this was filmed….life is so short

[@rattyfus8218]

I love the way that a BBC reporter who has never lived there describes Hartlepool as a cheerless northern town. Note the “northern”. A bit of stereotype reinforcement going on there?

[@acptelford1307]

Well, it’s a town and… it’s in the north of England

[@vikingfitz9088]

It’s become a poorer town now than in 1974! Sadly!

[@Costa_del_Artlepool]

But at least it's a lot more diverse now, so it's not just English people who suffer. Plus, when you've no sense of community you don't worry about job security, the economy, the future or anything because the whole country is already wrecked... which is nice.

[@jeffreybrucebutterfield]

Everyone is sporting smartphones and wearing designer clothing now 😅

[@JagdgeschwaderX]

@@jeffreybrucebutterfield Is that your idea of prosperity?

[@tonypaddler]

​@@Costa_del_Artlepool Very true, unfortunately.

[@rockonbaz]

All those cars are classics now and worth a fortune....Hindsight eh!!

[@philwise872]

Especially that Jag

[@Buff_Cupcake]

I've always wondered if those economic issues due to industry cuts back then will repeat themselves as automaton and AI advance to a point where it is able to do many of the things that currently keep us in employment. Only it won't be the coal or steel industry, it'll be desk jobs and machine factory work

[@unrealeck]

Interesting the BBC puts this out when Labour have just announced giving Councils a four day week.

[@Pyjamarama11]

New clowns Same old circus

[@SEAWEEDER1]

I work for the council and been on a 4 day week for years. This is my long weekend off.

[@acptelford1307]

In 1974?

[@borocat]

Mainly because of Government neglect

[@davidbowie2046]

When New Years day was made a Bank Holiday

[@burnttoasttours8712]

"Hartlepool has one of the highest rates of adults out of work in Britain'....2024....

[@jasonayres]

"Grubbing" for *coal* on the bitterly cold beach. No wonder the place was always dogged by unemployment and deprivation, with that cheerful commentary. "Hartlepool welcomes you"

[@fredo1070]

5% unemployment rate, that looks like the good times from today's perspective.

[@Nick-io9uk]

@@fredo1070 Its all a bit convoluted. If you look at overall participation rates, economic unemployment (as in every adult not working for whatever reason, stay at home mother, education etc) has been remarkably consistent over the last 50 years or so. Its just back then, most left school at 16 so would go immediately on the 'official unemployment' rolls whereas now so many are in full time education even though in economic terms, they are unemployed. Masses more on disability...pre Thatcher it was stable at 500,000, post thatcher, 2.5 million

[@paultaylor7082]

@@Nick-io9uk By 1985, unemployment in the UK hit a post war peak of 3.2 million. If you add on the 2 million registered as on long term Sickness Benefit, that's just over 5 million. At the time, that equated to almost 20% of the working population without paid employment.

[@Nick-io9uk]

@@paultaylor7082 And incapacity kept rising to 2.5mn between 95-2000 ish. The difference between now and then (the mid 80s) is we werent able hide a million or so youth 18-22 unemployed under the guise of being in full time education. Unemployment started rising in the 70s and has never really got back there since

[@Billyg215]

Don`t forget it`s cheerless he said. MMmmm i wonder who grassed us up.

[@davidpayne3938]

The problem with the miner's striking in 1974 it put the whole country to ransom and also Margret Thatcher learnt from it for the future when she came into government and stock piled coal before the miner's strike in the early 80's, we had a coal industry to be proud of and could still have been successful running today with cleaner burning coal stations that could have been a asset to our country 🇬🇧instead we buy in gas from Norway at full market price and burn that for electric instead, absolute madness..😢

[@JohnHarrison-it7wq]

@@davidpayne3938 💯

[@OffGridInvestor]

Digging coal BY HAND was NEVER going to be profitable compared to the coal imported from Australia. You SEEN the Australian coal mines? They're open pit, 100% machine operated and KILOMETRES wide. I have driven past many of them. One area I drive past every year or two has a seam 100 METERS THICK.

[@davidpayne3938]

@@OffGridInvestor I agree with you in regards to digging coal by hand but with technology comes better machinery or just have open pits like you said, China has well over 3000 coal fired stations, we have none, we should have kept using coal until alternative greener energy was available and only then discontinue using coal, selling the railways, energy and water for everyone's basic human needs for our country was never going to be a good thing but for the wealthiest in the global market place..🇬🇧💰👍

[@ChartreuseDan]

Showed how many people the conservative party would see freezing and destitute before they'd agree to pay a working person a living wage. If only people had remembered in 79

[@andymerrett]

"cheerless Northern town". :(

[@teviottilehurst]

The Tories were in power when the Three Day Week took place. Miners were on strike regarding overtime, the fuel crisis caused by problems in the Middle East and Tory intransigence were the main factors.

[@onchnc3546]

I always wondered what 'white privilege' looked like.

[@danielward1636]

All English, where are all the foreigners that built England?

[@Costa_del_Artlepool]

They're just adding the finishing touches, and I do mean FINISHING!

[@tonypaddler]

Ssshh 🤫 Daniel, you'll wake the woke ... 😄😉👍

[@tonypaddler]

@@Costa_del_Artlepool Yeah, that poor Hartlepool bloke that got 'culturally enriched' last year 😢

[@nigellee9824]

They didn’t, England was already built, foreigners filled the gap…for a while..

[@JJONNYREPP]

1974: HARTLEPOOL and the THREE-DAY WEEK | Nationwide | World of Work | BBC Archive 0845am 10.7.24 be surprised if you get that to burn, the stuff he was collecting.

[@spankflaps1365]

My Gran burned Hartlepool sea coal during WW2, when house coal was rationed. She said it burned OK, but it spit a lot.

[@stelamo]

oh it burns , it melts the bottom out your fire !

[@JJONNYREPP]

@@stelamo Comments on ‘1974: HARTLEPOOL and the THREE-DAY WEEK | Nationwide | World of Work | BBC Archive’ 1320pm 10.7.24 it does? looked like that crappy stuff found on open cast mines... the crud you find stuck between rocks and within crevices...used to dig it out as a kid to burnon a cmap fire. htough it nevefr burned.... just lay there as the flames dimmed... unimpressed by the innovation.

[@laa4438]

They sell it to industry. Too sandy for a home fire

[@stelamo]

@@JJONNYREPP the sea coal sits on top of the sand , wrap it in old news paper , like a sausage roll , as the paper burns , the small bits of coal stick together .

[@TheNinjaMarmot]

People were much more stoic then. Now ppl just complain and moan, they cant get their McDs.

[@MichaelBosley]

Did we watch the same video? There were plenty of people moaning here.

[@analogueman123456787]

@@MichaelBosley - But had it existed at the time, would half the population have taken to (anti)social media to whine "I can't cope..." as they do these days? Somehow I doubt it.

[@flatoutflatbroke]

Most of the nation were pretty stoic through COVID. Indeed the people kicked up a fuss were the sort of people who like to spend their time saying how people aren't as strong/stoic as they were in the war and would never cope with anything like that. These same people who look through rose tinted spectacles about a long lost past, complained about having to wear a face covering when buying a sandwich in Tesco whilst the people they deride as weak snowflakes just got on with their lives.

[@analogueman123456787]

@@flatoutflatbroke - Most of the nation? You're having a larf! It was actually the older generation that, on the whole, remained stoic during the shut-downs, and the younger ones that took to (anti)social media en-mass, whingeing about how they couldn't cope. And amazingly ironic you should mention "rose tinted spectacles", given how well they fit your obviously biased view of events a little over four years ago. 😄

[@analogueman123456787]

@@flatoutflatbroke Most of the nation? You're having a larf mate! It was actually the older generation that, on the whole, remained stoic after everything shut down, and the younger ones that took to (anti)social media en-mass, whimpering about how they couldn't cope. And amazingly ironic you should mention "rose tinted spectacles", given how well they fit your obviously biased view of events a little over four years ago. 😄