* THREE DAY WEEK:

-- Energy supplies, already hit by the Arab embargo in the wake of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, were further limited by a miners' overtime ban and rail union disruption of transport to power stations. Heating was restricted, panic queues formed at filling stations and, eventually, industry was put on a three-day week, domestic power supplies were rationed, and TV limited by curfew.

-- Edward Heath's four years as prime minister ended in 1974 after a bitter confrontation with the then-mighty National Union of Mineworkers whose national strike resulted in darkened streets and the three-day week. Within a year of the 1974 election, Margaret Thatcher ousted Heath from the Conservative Party leadership.

* MINERS STRIKE:

-- Mining communities across Britain went on a bitter year-long strike in 1984, hoping to scuttle Thatcher's plan to shut 20 mines, or pits, and eliminate 20,000 jobs. Thatcher won the epic showdown, and changing economic realities have since all but wiped out Britain's mining industry.

-- In the 1980's the National Union of Mineworkers had a quarter of a million members working in more than 170 state-owned pits. The British coal industry, now in private hands, has less than 10 deep mines.

* DASH FOR GAS:

-- The "dash for gas" in the 1980s and 1990s followed the miners' strike. Gas, along with nuclear power, formed part of a twin-forked assault on "King Coal".

* THE NUCLEAR AGE: