ABSTRACT
Despite all that had been done, as the winter started the CEGB believed that it could not get through it without some power cuts. The general position was good but the problem of the power stations that had not been receiving coal, the have-nots, remained a serious threat to keeping the lights on. If we accepted that we were going to fail, and that was the implication of having any cuts at all, it was necessary to advise the government. The options were to have planned rota disconnections over high demand periods at an early date or to wait until some power stations ran out of coal, when larger scale and more disruptive cuts would become unavoidable. The CEGB decided that it was not prepared to live with this belief. We already felt that we had moved up a gear, with the success of the campaign to improve endurance. There was confidence that we could do more; certainly there was a resolve to try.
