THE POWERCUTS OF 1972/73

Back in the winter of 1972/73, when we had all the Power Cuts, I was working in a hardware store. First job since leaving school, on £8.43 a week. Do you remember that winter? Edward Heath had screwed things up with the miners and the rest of the power workers, and everyone was on strike. So, while the shop sold plenty of Hurricane lamps, Geoff, the owner, also made money by delivering the paraffin fuel for these and coal for fires. These were cold, winter evenings when whole neighbourhoods would have the lecky cut off for a few hours. It seems strange to look back on it now. And people who never experienced the Power Cuts probably don’t believe it ever happened …. But it did.

He was a good bloke, Geoff. We used to deliver to this decayed old lady who lived in a dun-coloured terraced house. I'd sling a sack of coal on my shoulders and would have to walk through the house to the bunker outside. As soon as I entered her home, I could feel a cold, damp mist rising from her decomposing carpets, and I would want to gag at the putrid, musty stench. Seriously, there really was a humid, clammy mist rising from her carpets. This was how she lived, bless her.  It was as if some kind of mouldy, organic substance was rotting and festering away under the floorboards.

At one stage the wallpaper may well have had a pattern to it, but that was many, many years earlier. Now the whole interior of the house was the colour of polluted ochre.

This old lady would never have made it through a winter of Power Cuts without coal and paraffin. But then I doubt if she could pay her electricity bills in any case.

I'd be tipping my sack of coal into the bunker when Geoff would come up behind me with another sack. ‘Looks like we put on one too many,’ he'd say, ‘Might as well bung this extra one in here, eh? Save taking it back to the shop.’

This tired, honest old lady, skin disintegrating from her brittle, anaemic hands, would search in her little, black purse for the coins necessary to pay us, for she knew we worked on a C.O.D. basis. But Geoff would always say, ‘That's alright, love, leave it for the moment. I've got no change with me right now. I'll bill you next week, okay.’

And then, after two or three weeks of this, Laura, who worked in the shop, would mention that Mrs. So 'n' So at such 'n' such address was behind on her payments. Geoff would wink at me, tear the bill up and say, ‘Oh well, you can't win 'em all, can you?’

It's tempting to write something like, ‘Why aren't there more people like Geoff in the world?’ but of course there are. I think this is a wonderful planet and I think it's full of Geoffs. They don't get much publicity, and they certainly don't ask for any, but in the winter of 1972/73 Geoffs all over the United Kingdom were keeping otherwise neglected pensioners alive.

With Keir Starmer cutting the winter fuel allowance for pensioners and receiving the majority vote from 348 MPs to do so today AND making no apologies if 4000 pensioners die of cold, we’re going to need more Geoffs.

Keep an eye on your neighbours this winter.

Copyright © Karl Wiggins