1974: The three-day week

A telephonist works by torchlight at the start of the three day week, which was introduced at midnight on 31 December 1973 Photograph: Hulton

Coal miners walk out of Welbeck Colliery, near Mansfield, on 11 January 1974 Photograph: Selwyn Tait/ Selwyn Tait/ Corbis Sygma

One of the regular power cuts leaves most of the lights out in London's Piccadilly Circus on 1 February 1974 Photograph: PA/PA Archive/PA

A miners' picket line outside the entrance to a colliery in Doncaster in 1974 Photograph: Sipa Press / Rex Features/SIPA

Women in the office of a duvet manufacturing firm use quilts to keep themselves warm while they work Photograph: Evening Standard/Getty

9 December 1974: A long queue forms outside the Holborn Bakery, in Lambs Conduit Street, London, to wait for the next delivery of bread during the industrial dispute Photograph: Evening Standard/Getty/Evening Standard/Getty