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The Winter of 1946-7 in Blackpool - February 1947. 

 

Too Late! Prams, go-carts and home-made handcarts are taken to Blackpool's Rigby Road gasworks each day by people wanting coke. Selling starts at 8a.m. and goes on until noon - unless supplies run out before as they had when this picture was taken.
Blackpool, the first week of February, 1947. Too Late! Prams, go-carts and home-made handcarts are taken to Blackpool's Rigby Road gasworks each day by people wanting coke. Selling starts at 8a.m. and goes on until noon - unless supplies run out before as they had when this picture was taken.

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Blackpool, mid-February, 1947. Dining by candlelight during the power cuts.

Blackpool, mid-February, 1947. Dining by candlelight during the power cuts.

Blackpool, mid-February, 1947. Cooking by gas & candlelight during the power cuts.
Blackpool, mid-February, 1947. Cooking by gas & candlelight during the power cuts.

Blackpool Gazette & Herald 22nd February 1947 

 Frost hits housing scheme 

4 500 WORKING DAYS LOST 

FROST has meant an estimated loss of 4,500 working days on Blackpool Corporation's Grange Park Estate housing scheme.

That loss is in addition to stoppages in the rainy period before Christmas, which lasted more than a month. Time lost through bad weather on smaller housing schemes has also been serious. The "waiting list" for houses is now nearly 9,000.“

“ Grange Park has been an unfortunate scheme since the start, “said a Corporation official. " At the outset when the levelling was in process there was wet weather.

Grange Park had 288 men engaged on it when the frost interrupted work, but many who were on the guaranteed week had to be paid off. Outside work has not been possible. Plumbers, painters and joiners and electricians have been busy on inside work.

2 MONTHS' SETBACK 

“When the weather improved both labour and material problems developed. Then, when labour was available there were no materials. It looks as if the bad weather will set the scheme back for nearly two months." Corporation officials view the next few months with anxiety. “Even when the weather is suitable," one official said, “there will be a bottle-neck through a lack of materials. " The industrial hold-up has stopped the production of housing materials.


Gazette & Herald, 15th February 1947Blackpool Gazette & Herald, 15th February 1947

 

Blackpool Gazette & Herald, Saturday 8th February, 1947

How Biggest Cut will hit Blackpool

Next Mondays Electricity Slash

Factory and home

FROM Monday no electricity will be available for industry in Blackpool and on the Fylde coast until further notice, with a few exceptions. It was estimated last night that about 10,000 workers will be affected.

Domestic supplies will be cut off between 9 a.m. and noon and 2 p.m. and 4 p.m 

The situation may continue in this part of the country for only a day, according to Mr. Shinwell, Minister of Fuel and Power. Elsewhere, including London, it may last for a week. 

The effect on Blackpool will not be so serious as seemed likely when the news first broke. Last night came flashes that transport, telephones, hospital services, newspapers and food-producing industries will have supplies.  

Entertainments are almost certain to close down, and in those cafes and restaurants able to carry on it is not likely that there will be any lighting. 

Last night's interviews. 

Here are the Blackpool views given in interviews with "Gazette, & Herald" reporters last night: 

TRAMS 

Walter Luff
Blackpool Transport manager. 

Apparently it will not affect us, so trams will be running as usual. 

CATERING 

J. E. Stokes President, Blackpool Cafe and Restaurant Proprietors' Association.  

Our members will face the situation, and do their best for public. I believe the majority of cafes and restaurants in Blackpool cook by gas or solid fuel and not by electricity. 

As to lighting well, we shall just have to manage without electricity as we have done when there has been a breakdown. The public will be fed and served to the best of our ability. We shall be open till 10-30 p.m. as usual. 

Mr. S. Gaskin Manager, Clifton Hotel. 

This has come like a thunderbolt, I don’t think we are classed as an industrial concern, but even so I don't know what we will do. Kitchens and places like that need electricity for lighting so that we can see to work. 

SHOWS 

Mr.J.H. Clegg
Secretary and a director of the Tower and Winter Gardens Companies. 

This will apply to all the entertainment industry. We do not make our own electricity - we get it supplied from the Corporation and it is transformed. The Tower and Winter Gardens have secondary sources of supply from a battery, but we can't keep our places going on batteries. 

BREWERY 

An official
Catterall and Swarbrick's brewery.  

We just could not run at all. Everything here is on electricity. We only boil beer from steam but don’t run any steam engine. All the machinery is run by electric motor, 

FACTORIES 

Mr. S. Bower, O.B.E.
Superintendent of Vickers Squires Gate.

No electricity and we come to a standstill. 

Mr. J. Eaves.
Managing director, H.V. Burlingham Ltd., motor body builders. 

If this comes about there will be no work at the Preston New Road factory, but at the Vicarage lane factory we can generate our own electricity and work will continue there. 

Mr. F. Hawtin.
Managing director, Hawtins Ltd., engineers. 

Cut us off and we shall have to pack up and go home. About 80 per cent of our production will be stopped. 

Mr G. Bull.
Joint managing director, Waller and Hartley Ltd. manufacturing confectioners. 

We will just have to shut down. Some of our toffee output is tor export. 

Blackpool Gazette & Herald, Saturday 8th February, 1947

 
  

Gleaming eyes in the blackout. February 1947. The staff of the Ministry of National Insurance at the Norbreck Hydro, Blackpool, have been working overtime for many months, often as late as 9p.m. This picture was taken during the blackout of street lighting.
Gleaming eyes in the blackout. February 1947. The staff of the Ministry of National Insurance at the Norbreck Hydro, Blackpool, have been working overtime for many months, often as late as 9p.m. This picture was taken during the blackout of street lighting.

   
Blackpool Gazette & Herald 22nd February 1947.

Frosty figures

WITH the exception of February 4, frost has been recorded every day in Blackpool since January 19.

The most severe frost within that period was 21 degrees Fahrenheit (-6 Celsius) on January 30, with 19 degrees Fahrenheit (-7 Celsius) on February 16 and 18 degrees Fahrenheit (-8 Celsius) on February 17.

On five days during the period frost persisted for the whole of the 24 hours. Since January 25, the temperature has never exceeded 37 degrees (3 Celsius).

Cartoon from February 1947.

 

Cold Facts 

BLACKPOOL was the coldest spot in England on Tuesday, said a London newspaper....They're telling us!

Mr. Shinwell (Minister of Fuel and Power) was guest of honour at the dinner at the Casino, South Shore, in June. And they forgot to sing," Freeze a jolly good fellow ".

Hailing a taxi, a man drove to the Blackpool gas works, queued up for coke, put his sack in the taxi, and drove home in triumph.

Local electricity consumers saved 160 tons of coal last Saturday but there has been a decline this week, under 100 on being saved on one or two days.

 

 

 

BENEATH THE STARS  

Blackpool by candlelight 

By “SIRIUS" 

WHEN, the other day, we had our second burst pipe this winter I made an astonishing discovery. 

This time, before we could stop it, the flood got itself mixed up with the flex. We were busy mopping up the water when we heard a cry of alarm from aloft. It came from the plumber. He objected, he said, to being electrocuted, even at 4s. 2½d, an hour. 

So we had to switch off all the lights. And it was then that I made the surprising discovery. It was that although we had half-a-dozen candlesticks in the house - two wooden, two glass, and two supposedly silver - we hadn't a single candle to put in any of them.  

Since then candles have been in the limelight, if you see what I mean. The poor, despised, primitive form of illumination has come into its own again. When I called on my banker this week to see if money was still cheap we jointly examined my overdraft by the light of a candle stuck in an empty inkwell. 

When staggering out, I sought the nearest tea-shop for a much needed stimulant I was served with tea that was brewed by candlelight. And it was by candlelight that I drank it.  

I called at a shop and had to buy a book by candlelight. 

Who would have expected that in this age of atomic energy the people of Britain would have to depend as did the Anglo-Saxons, upon the farthing dip? 

I'm not grumbling. I prefer the soft glow of the candle to the cold glare of the electric bulb. It suits my complexion better. And it's ever so more romantic. There's an indefinable old-world charm in dining by candle-light, so long of course, that the wax doesn't drop into the wine. 

And there's a practical advantage. You know where you are. With electric light you are forever in debt. As soon as you've paid one quarterly account (plus 10 per cent. extra charge, less five per cent. discount) you get another. But you buy your candle before you burn it and, even as it flickers out, you have the satisfaction of knowing that you are still solvent. 

The Baths Committee meeting at Blackpool Town Hall, mid-February, 1947. There was no heating so members had to keep their overcoats on and get on with the business. Pictured are Ald. J.R.Quayle,J.P., Coun.F.R.Boydell, Mr.J.H.Hollingworth, Coun.W.Ogden, MrJ.Bell and Coun.A.Dyson.

The Baths Committee meeting at Blackpool Town Hall, mid-February, 1947. There was no heating so members had to keep their overcoats on and get on with the business. Pictured are Ald.J.R.Quayle,J.P., Coun.F.R.Boydell, Mr.J.H.Hollingworth, Coun.W.Ogden, MrJ.Bell and Coun.A.Dyson. 

Lack of heating in the offices at the Ministry of Pensions, Warbreck Hill, Blackpool, mid-February, 1947. These three ex-servicemen are working indoors but wearing naval duffel coats and flying kit.Lack of heating in the offices at the Ministry of Pensions, Warbreck Hill, Blackpool, mid-February, 1947. These three  ex-servicemen are working indoors but wearing naval duffel coats and flying kit.

Blackpool General Post Office, mid-February,1947.A lady is posting a parcel with the clerk working by candlelight. Blackpool General Post Office, mid-February, 1947. A lady is posting a parcel with the clerk working by candlelight.
 

Blackpool Gazette & Herald 22nd February 1947.

Lights out  

THIS week safety and security by night have had to give way in Blackpool to the overriding necessity of saving fuel.  

Blackpool was one of the towns notified by the Ministry of Fuel and Power, diplomatically but none the less emphatically, that a blackout meant a blackout, and nothing less. 

It is fairly common knowledge that there would have been fewer lights on from the first if the original scheme of the electricity department had been followed. After careful consideration however, it was felt that because of the slippery state of many of the streets, because of the amount of night traffic in the centre of the town, and because of the prevalence of burglaries a certain amount of lighting should remain. 

Nevertheless, it became harder and harder to justify the retention of all the lights that Blackpool kept on as night succeeded night. As “The Evening Gazette” pointed out a week ago yesterday, domestic users were less inclined to impose hardship on themselves by refraining from switching on appliances when they could see street lights shining in all directions.  

And on Tuesday - the full blackout came into operation on Tuesday night - there was a drop in electricity saving officially described as “alarming." The figures for the few previous days showed quite plainly that people were taking it for granted that the situation was improving to such an extent that they need not be quite so careful. 

The imposition of the blackout came just at the right time to correct that attitude: to re-impress the lesson that neither this week nor next week, nor for many weeks to come, can we afford to let slip any fraction of electricity that can reasonably be saved. 

 

The Big freeze started on 21st january 1947 and lasted for two months - click on the link below for more info.........

CONTINUE - The Big Freeze of 1947 - March