It’s hard to imagine what today’s youngsters would do if we had to return to the days of power cuts in the early 1970s. Mobile phones, iPads and the like may run on batteries but they all have to be charged up. No power, and it won’t be long before Angry Birds Go! becomes Angry Birds Stop! And that TV may have more than 100 channels, but if there’s no power you might as well watch the front of the washing machine – which won’t be much fun either.

Back in 1972, the Watford Observer published a table each week of when your power would be going off, and how long for. Each area was on a rota, so everyone lost power at different times.

Although I was nine at the time, and growing up elsewhere in the Home Counties, I remember thinking those cuts were marvellous – Dad getting the candles out from under the kitchen sink, candles with their special smoky, burning smell (no smoke alarms then, of course). It’s a wonder I didn’t grow up to be a fireman, come to think of it. Or a pyromaniac.

Anyway, looking back through the 1972 Watford Observers last week, it must have been a miserable time for adults. But for small boys it was all just one big adventure.

Not surprisingly, when the Watford Observer published items reflecting those gloomy times, it tried to come up with stories rather more uplifting than people falling over in the dark or breaking their necks tumbling down unlit stairs. One story which caught my eye, from the front page of February 25, 1972, was headed “Women in curlers beat cuts”.

It reads: “Wearing curlers in the street is not usually considered the right thing to do, but clients of David Blair and Peter Shaw, the Watford hairdressers, have been doing so in Watford High Street to beat the power situation. With only 200 yards between the salons, and each on a different power cut rota the two hairdressers have come to an agreement for their mutual advantage.

“As a result, between 30 and 40 clients from David Blair, with headscarves to cover the curlers, walked to Peter Shaw on Thursday, and on Friday, about 20 from Peter Shaw made the walk in the opposite direction.”

It seems other hairdressers had similar arrangements. Indeed, in one case the owners would ferry the becurlered ladies across town in the back of a van.

The previous week, the Watford Observer demonstrated that, no matter how bad it gets, there’s always someone who doesn’t want the situation to change.

“Power cuts bring troubles for some,” the story says, “But not for others. Business is booming at the Allcraft shop in Market Street, Watford, who on Saturday and Monday alone estimated they had sold six to seven hundredweights of candle wax for make-your-own-candle enthusiasts.

“‘We have still not sold out,’ commented manager Mr Derek Read. ‘We learned our lesson last year and got tons and tons in especially.’”

It’s an ill wind, as they say, that blows out all the candles. Or something...

 

Something else from that time which slightly baffles me now is the arrival of the postcode.
I thought that mysterious collection of letters and numbers at the end of my address had been there forever; apparently not.

The Post Office spent a fortune in 1972 on full page adverts in the Watford Observer pleading with residents not only to “remember to use the Postcode” but also to reassure readers this new-fangled thing wasn’t all part of some ghastly plot to reduce civil liberties.

“We’d like to remove a slight worry some people may have concerning the Postcode,” begins one such advert, from February 11, 1972. “They see it, somehow, as the thin end of the wedge.

And they see a bleak future looming up, in which such comforting expressions of individuality as Sans Souci, Cosy Cot, The Larches and The Lodge are replaced by these cryptic symbols. Shades of 1984 and all that. Well, if that’s the way you are feeling, we can set your mind at rest.”

The ad goes on to say that the only point of the Postcode (they always gave it a capital ‘P’ for some reason) is to help the Post Office handle its 35,000,000 letters each day with automatic sorting machines.

“Only with the help of the Postcode can they do their full job of sorting your letters from regions into districts into areas, right down to the street where you live. And that’s all there is to it. Nothing more. To you, and to everyone, your house will still be home sweet home. Not home sweet WD7 8DW.”

 

Finally this week, a heartwarming story from 1930. On February 22 that year, the Watford Observer published a letter from a G. W. Smith of High Road, Tottenham.

“Sir,” he writes. “On January 21, whilst travelling from Liverpool to Watford via Euston, a Watford lady lost a ring in the compartment where I was.

“Next day I found the ring in the turn-up of my trousers and I am anxious to return it to the lady who, I believe, attaches much sentimental value to the ring, as it belonged to her late mother, so she informed another lady in the carriage.

“I ascertained the name of your paper through the kindness of the Mayoress (Mrs A. F. Broad) and if the lady concerned will send me her address, I shall be most happy to return her ring.”

The following week [March 1, 1930] a short article headed “Lost Ring Found” appeared in which Mr Smith wrote again.

“As a result of your announcement I had the pleasure this morning of returning the ring to the lady, on the platform at Euston, just a few minutes before she left England to return to Canada,” he wrote.

Ah, I do so love a happy ending.

ONLINE TOMORROW: Princess Anne's wedding cake and Bushey's buried river

These stories formed part of the Nostalgia column first published in the Watford Observer on February 7, 2014. The next Nostalgia column – a special Valentine's Day edition with a lovesick ghost, a matchmaking mayor, a heart-shaped bed and a recipe for Cupid's Cake, among other things – can be found in tomorrow’s Watford Observer (dated February 14, 2014) or read online here from 4pm next Thursday.

If you have anything to add – or would like to tell us anything you think our readers may enjoy about Watford’s history – we are always pleased to hear from you. Contact Nostalgia, by clicking here watfordnostalgia@london.newsquest.co.uk