1973

Above: box of candles bought from the Co-Op in 1973. Notice the price on the box - 17p ("three and six in real money"). Notice also the 70s packaging which is a simple red and white design on a card box, with no plastic film.

Terrific winds blew today, and brought down the power lines leading into the village (we are literally the end of the line). So there was no power, and therefore no light and no heat - we have open fireplaces and some coal in one of the sheds, but as always in these situations, you expect the power to come back on at any moment. Except that it didn't.

I came in from work to find my brother in the long sitting room reading with a torch. I sat in an armchair and slept for about an hour and a half, waking up to feel hungry and very cold.

Borrowing the torch I went through the middle kitchen, through the outer kitchen, past the downstairs loo that nobody uses, and into a windowless lobby where no end of stuff has accumulated over the years.

Rootling among the paint-encrusted paintbrushes, ancient shoe-cleaning paraphernalia, discarded jam jars etc I eventually found three boxes of candles.

These candles were bought by my mother in (I think) 1973 when a miners' strike initiated a series of power cuts. We had no candles at the time and panic buying had removed every candle from the shops. My parents spent most of the evening power cuts sitting in the darkness listening to a battery radio.

After the power cuts had ended candles came back into the shops. My mother brought three boxes so she would not be caught out again. They were never needed... until today.

When the power came on the first thought that struck me was how wasteful we are with electricity.