The Winter of Discontent

[ListenLinda]

I forgot I had recorded this, it was on channel 5 maybe a week or so ago.
As i’m watching, I’m feeling a sense of unease, with very similar images to now.
Rampant inflation, wages not rising with the cost of living, strikes, crappy government, seems like the only thing missing is the horrendous weather.

Are we heading for another winter of discontent?
I was born in 1990, my parents were early teens in 1978/79 so not sure how they remember it.
For those of you who do remember, does this feel the same, or was it worse back then?
Can you see history repeating itself?

I managed about five minutes of that programme before I realised who the blonde woman was - her off Gogglebox with the UKIP husband. If she's the best they could do for a talking head, it's hardly going to be the epitome of cutting-edge analysis is it. File under sensationalist shite along with GBNews, whose viewers are probably its target audience.

In answer to your question: yes of course we are. The signs are all around us.

I don’t think it was intended to be cutting edge, more a recount of the events for people like me who didn’t live through that time and wonder why people compare now, to then.

This was an ugly piece of Tory propaganda, and the context needs to be understood. The tool used in this joke of a documentary was to have a bleak backdrop of Britain's misery whilst the narrator continuously repeated "Labour, Labour, Labour" over it. This is Stalinism 101, and is so obvious as to be offensive. Rewatch it and count how many times the word "Labour" is used. How many times is the word "Conservative" used? Don't bother looking, I've done it for you. The answer is zero.

The truth to the whole thing is that Heath had already sold a lot of public interests long before Labour got anywhere near them, and the fallout was made to look like a huge socialist cock-up, although socialism might have actually had a fighting chance at that point. The unionised anger was there, the public dissatisfaction was there...it was merely the power of the right-wing press that pointed it in the wrong place.

The moral is, always second-guess what you see on TV and double-check the lies you're told. It WILL happen again, obviously, but let's get the blame right this time.

Good point, and I didn’t really look too much at that.
I was watching thinking how similar it all feels, down to the energy crisis and was feeling a bit grim.

Now that I think back, it was shades of what we have now ‘but Labour…’

Oh and it painted Thatcher as the saviour, which we all know what happened next.

I remember it just.
I remember the lights going off. Having to eat by candlelight. Sometimes the power went off when dm was cooking so we'd have to have bread instead of hot meals.
Being tucked in bed and read stories to because it was so cold as the heating was off.

For me (I was preschool) the biggest thing was the fear of the lights going off. I hated them going off when it was dark. There was no warning. Or waking in the night and not being able to put on a light. It still makes me panicky and I have a torch by my bed even now.

For my parents, who had just bought a house, it was fear of df losing his job, money worries and not knowing what was going to happen. I only was vaguely aware of those, but dsis, who was 4 years older was more aware. I remember talking about df maybe losing his job with dsis.

I must have been oblivious. Mid teens at the time and I don't recall any hardships.

Paragon heaters stink and are really dangerous ( or was that 74?)

Parents get stressed and lots of arguments about money

Children then tended to brush over these things

I was about 20 and still living with my parents so not buying food or paying bills, a third of my wages went to pay board to my parents and inflation must have been very high as we had large pay rises, 2 a year iirc and i just remember strikes but there were a lot of those in the 70s, the lights going off mentioned upthread was around 73/74 to preserve coal because of the miners strikes not the winter of discontent which was 78/79

I was about 10. I remember there being no money.

We played murder in the dark during electricity breaks.

I agree with most of this. I was gobsmacked that Esther Rantzen and the like were trotted out as experts on industrial relations!!!

But to answer the OP's question... actually I recall it clearly, and things are a lot worse now in my opinion. People didn't have much then, but we had no food banks and our homes may not have been (over-heated) ovens but mostly people managed without being scared that the cold would kill them. Part of the difference is no doubt the higher expectations today, and the "things we want" that we feel entitled to have. And also today people are less engaged with their neighbours and their community - I vividly recall going round to the two old ladies on the street with some fruit or eggs, or even a bit of coal which we could spare, despite being dirt poor ourselves. Back then unions and workers wanted more of a share of the wealth around them, and they organised to get that (which in a large part gained us many of the things we now take for granted including employment laws that protect people). Now there is abject poverty, people will die as a result, there is fear and anger - and it wasn't supposed to be like this. I fear where it will end, but not happily is almost certain.

Growing up in the 60's we had aspirations and hopes for the future, that things would get better, that wealth would be shared more equally. I recall teachers talking about how the future would be full employment, working three days a week because that would be enough to live on well, and more leisure time and education. The future was rosy. Now it is scary. And the only advice I have for young people today is to get out of the country if they can, because I do not see it getting better.

I remember 78/79 quite well. I lived up north and the power would suddenly go off for a few hours so we'd have to light lots of candles and site near the gas fire. Mind you because of where we lived I remember power cuts in the 80s also to the extent that when I left home at 18 to go to uni I actually took some candles with me in case of a power cut 😂

Despite my parents not being rich and having 3 children I don't remember it being a time of hardship at all. We had enough to eat and we didn't go on foreign holidays until I was in my teens and people generally had a lot less 'stuff' than they have now. That was life in the 1970's.

You just got on with it, like at any time in history!
It's only after the event that you realise it wasn't really the norm.. I remember all the funny bits, tbh.. me trying to change a camping gaz container at work & doing it wrongly.. it pierced & the gas was whizzing out.. had to throw it out of my place of work into the street! ;-)
Candles everywhere, & the shops running out of them.. the lack of loo rolls during the lorry drivers' strike, & the lack of bread during the bakers' strike.. hilariously, rumours would start that Woolies had got loo rolls, or a local baker had bread.. a junior member of staff was dispatched to join a queue & bring these jewels back to the rest of us.. ;-)
Like at any time, life was what you made of it.
But as PP's have said, no food banks etc at that time.. we could all pay our gas & electricity bills.. there were around 6 buses an hour to get me to work & back.. if I needed to see my GP, I'd just go down in surgery hours & wait until it was my turn. No appointments then. Things seemingly don't always change for the better.

I remember it well as I was 21 and working for the Civil service.

I disagree with the PP that the programme was "Tory propaganda". It was factual and accurate. The reason why Labour where talked of and critiqued was only because they were the Government at that time! Jim Callaghan was a total fuck up during the crisis and it is totally true that the Public were so fed up with the Unions endless striking that they voted Thatcher in to break them as she promised.

I never voted for her BTW. I thought she took it too far the other way.

I was about 10 or 11, I remember it. Particuarly remember mum trying to cook chips on the gas stove, but the lights had gone out and she was using a candle to see if they were cooked! Also remember walking home from church in the dark with no streetlights. Oh and people were worried the shops would run out of candles, so you didnt waste them!

I agree things were in a way better back then. Food banks werent a thing, most people could afford food, their rent (everyone I knew lived in a council house), and bills, but there were no holidays or luxuries for us. Public services functioned far better.
I feel more worried now because I strongly suspect things are going to get a lot worse. I just waiting for the second round of "austerity measures" to be announced, they may try and call it another name but it will be austerity. Our already imploding public services will be decimated.

It’s shocking to think that things are similar in 2022.
My parents don’t remember much of it.
My Grandad was a lorry driver, sadly passed away now. I don’t know if he went on strike during that time, I never knew much about it until recently.

We have gone back in time, how utterly depressing. Life is supposed to get better, our kids were supposed to have a brighter future 😕