1976

[Georgeskitchen]

Who is old enough to remember 1976?
The never ending heatwave. I was 15 at the time. It was pretty boiling hot. Water shortages with stand pipes to get water.The government even had a drought minister!
Can't remember any hysteria,( no social media back then, thank god)
All I can remember, growing up in a famous holiday resort, was a great summer with fabulous weather for weeks on end. Probably one of the best years of my life.
Anyone relate?

I can remember - but barely. I was a young child. Just remember being hot and being outside a lot in paddling pools!

I don't think our generation do hysteria. We do, pull up our socks and get on with it, it is what it is attitude. Thank god, because this current hysteria is frankly pissing me right off!

I was born during that heatwave,my mum's been telling me all my life how horrendous it was carrying me at the end 😁😁

I remember. Got heat stroke and the Gp came out. Lived on the Welsh border and the entire village was on fire watch for the local hills. Water was rationed as well. But I don’t remember anyone being smelly. Local garage built an outside pool and charged 10p to swim. I spent the summer teaching the owners primary school kids to swim in it - so for to use it for free!

Yep. Same. I was 13 and lived in a coastal resort. Best.Summer.Ever. It seemed to last for months and months, we spent all day every day on the beach, big pack of friends. The Radio One Roadshow came. Heaven. 🤣

yes I remember
I remember that the boys were allowed to take their shirts off in exams whereas the girls got in trouble for tying up their school shirts and showing a midriff
the main thing I remember is the water shortage and elaborate measures to save water
I don't remember it being excessively hot, more that it was hot and dry for a very long time- I don't think temps were in the 30s never mind 40

I was nine and had a great time that year. Our house had a really nice green area out the front and all the kids pitched tents on it and we slept out for the entire summer holiday. Cooking beans over camp fires and only going home to use the toilet and have our weekly bath! Freedom kids of today could only dream of.

I was a medical student at the time. The heat was grim. We had 30% excess deaths in London, and 20% across the UK.
I was working a summer office job during the vacation from med school, in a portacabin in an unshaded car park where the internal temp reached 100F.
The tarmac melted on the roads and we had to add salt to our soft drinks as we were developing cramps and feeling faint from hyponatraemia due to excess sweating.
I was glad when the heatwave finally broke with a thunderstorm that September.

On holiday in France for the whole of August1976. As soon as the drought minister was appointed the rain started.

I don't remember as I was only born in 1975. However My dad often used to talk about the billions of lady birds that appeared that year.
As far as I know there's been no scientific reason why this happened.

I remember 1976 I’ve just finished school and was about to start work for the first time. I look back now and think it was my last care free time before coming an adult.
Great memories.Sometimes I wish I could back to those days.

Me. I was 16 and the heatwave started on the day I took my last O Level. It was glorious. My father would drive us to the nearest beach every day and it was surreal. I can remember the heat but there was no hysteria afaik. Cheesecloth shirts were in along with (in my case) denim skirts or jeans (flares, obvs). The weather went on and on until it finally broke in September. Temperatures must've been pretty high and I spent a lot of time covered in coconut oil to speed up tanning,

I can't remember the ladybirds though. Elton John and Kiki Dee spent a long time at number one in the charts.

77 was pretty good too, I think.

Yes. I had a phobia of ladybirds as a kid which no doubt started during that summer. My bedroom windows (sash type) were crawling with them

I remember it! I was 9. I remember the roads where I lived were newly tarmacked and didn't really have a chance to set properly with the intense heat. We were digging up the edges with lollipop sticks🤣 I do remember complaining that my brother was allowed to basically run around in his pants and I wasn't!

And we drank lots and lots of Quosh!

I was on holiday in Germany aged 10. It was hot, but I can't remember that getting in the way of us enjoying ourselves. We went out and about every day.

Best summer ever. I was 16 and going out with the most popular boy in my year, capt of football and rugby team. Invited to all the best parties, including the posh kid's ones with pools. summer of 76 will always be my dream summer. Ahhhh.

I remember it,had been in the west of Ireland on holiday and it rained continuously.We were in a pub in Killarney and they were reporting from Wimbledon,people fainting in the heat.

I had a miscarriage after we got home and it was so hot,I loved the heat in those days.Cannot stand it now.

I was 13 and used to do my paper round before school while it was still cool enough. My mum went to Greece with family for a summer holiday and I went to my grandparents in Scotland where I had the better weather. I remember it being a brilliant summer as a kid.

I was 15, and also lived in a coastal resort. It was very dry but I don't remember particularly high temperatures. Of course we always had sea breezes.

Yup

No SM froth (telling you to quit moaning and crack on0

Instead it was front page and top story news, and the government appointed a minister. The drought was severe, and there was a big ramp up in government messaging - TV ads about bathing together, info packs to schools, the 'need you flush?' campaign etc

The peak temperature was 35 - so significantly lower than we're expecting (going up to or above blood temperature is pretty important, and it could be higher)

Also in 76, only Heathrow saw sustained temperatures over 35. No-where else, although somewhere in the country was over 35 for a run of a couple of weeks, it both dropped at night and dropped back a bit for a few days before returning.

Overall, the summer temperature June-August was 17, which is about a degree higher than expected. I think we're running hotter so far this year, so it'll be wait and see how duration stacks up. But we're well ahead on severity in terms of temperature. (Drought is a more distance prospect because of better levels of winter rainfall, but some areas eg the SE are starting their 'save water' campaigns so no room for complacency

Yes, I was mid-teens during the heatwave, I remember it as very worrying indeed. My parents grew all their own vegetables and fruit, everything in the garden was dying as there was no water. It was quite serious as we lived on what crops we could grow.

Water was rationed, we still had running water but some local areas literally had standpipes put in. Blue vans patrolled to check no-one was disobeying the hosepipe ban or washing their cars. When we washed up (no dishwasher) the suds were used for cleaning and any left was for the plants. We had to share bath water and then, with everyone bathed, the hosepipe would be lowered out of the upstairs bathroom window to take the bathwater all the way to the vegetable patch, it was all we had to keep the crops growing.

I remember reports of wild fires and buckling rail tracks. Our roads melted. Streets were deserted as it was too hot to be outside. Oh and there was a plague of ladybirds, my sister was bitten by one....

I remember them appointing a minister for rain or something. Eventually we got rain, possibly the end of August? I know it went on for what seemed a long time....

@Awwlookatmybabyspider I have no recollection of a ladybird invasion but fast forward to 1995 when my youngest son was born, o remember a very hot spell, and millions of ladybirds!!

I remember it, but I was only 6. We had a decent size paddling pool & all the kids in our cul-de-sac were in it all the time. It was a new build estate when my parents had bought the house, so all us kids really grew up together. It was fabulous. Unfortunately I don't remember too much from my childhood but I have quite clear memories from that summer @Awwlookatmybabyspider including the ladybirds!!

id love to be that child again.

I was 16 doing my O levels and starting my first job on reception in a car showroom with a plastic roof🌞🌞🌞
But there I was, 16 in 1976 with a garage full of mechanics lusting after me all day and out with friends to the pub every night, sitting outside in the heat with half a lager and feeling very continental, so life was pretty blissful.
Different times............

My mum was pregnant with my brother. I was 18 m old and had to have a lumbar puncture and between that and the heat she passed while I was on the way to theatre and my dad didn't know who to go with.