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?

Passed out, not died!

Yeah there is. Ladybirds eat aphids, and 1975 was a bumper year for them both. Aphid eat plants, and when in 1976 the plants shrivelled and died, there was a shortage of aphids, so the ladybirds swarmed to go off and try and find a new food source.

I think it was the first time I realised that 7-spot ladybirds can bite.

For those who want to feel nostalgic, here's a wiki page with both the list of 1976 Number 1s

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UK_top-ten_singles_in_1976

I'm actually quite surprised to see some of the list! I'd really not remembered that 'The Boys Are Back In Town' (which I thought was late 70s) was just earlier than 'The Leader of the Pack'(which I thought was 60s!)

Yes I was 13 - it was roasting for months and ladybirds give a nasty bite 😆

I was 8 and remember it. The tar on the road at my grans house melted and I got in so much trouble for poking it with a stick and getting it over my white ankle socks. We went down to the loch every day with sandwiches and squash to swim with my mum at lunchtime as dad was working, the summer seemed endless that year. I was speaking to my sister about that summer last night and we remember snow ploughs being out near Inverness in the summer that year for some reason, they were spreading something on the roads which we assume was to stop the tar melting.

Oh & I remember the day it finally rained - it was late August & I was in Yorkshire staying with my Nana and everyone was standing out in the street delighted 😄

Yes I was at school, I remember queuing at the standpipes with my mum and our buckets but also just playing in the sun constantly.

I was born and brought up in London but in middle age moved out, its so much cooler where we live now. Its going to be about 30 it says at the most here.

Ive never liked the heat but its doable.

I was 12 and spent two weeks in hospital just as the heatwave got started and I remember worrying that it would start raining and never stop the day I got out. This was not an unrealistic fear for a girl living in Ireland.

It was a glorious summer. We went to our usual spot for a beach holiday in a caravan and spent all day every day swimming. When we got home the garden was parched and brown.

I remember it but through the eyes of a child - it was a great time.

75 and 76 were lovely long hot Summers.
Wasn't Dennis Healey the Minister for drought ?
Nobody panicked about how people were going to manage for a whole lesson in school without having water.

I remember all the photos of empty reservoirs on the news and in the papers, and people queuing to fill jugs and buckets at standpipes, and instructions to only flush the toilet occasionally "If it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down"

MOstly though, it was just great to know it was going to be dry and sunny the next day and the day after and the next week and so on.

The settled weather must have started early, because I remember getting home and it still being warm and sunny so I'd go out into the garden to listen to Wimbledon on the radio in the evenings

The sunny weather seemed to last forever. I remember only a handful of days being hot.

And I remember the drought being all over the news for weeks, including on 'magazine' type programmes where I remember quite vividly one piece about rain-dancing

Wasn't Dennis Healey the Minister for drought ?

No, it was Dennis Howell.

I was a small child in 1976, but I do remember the heatwave & drought. It was nowhere near as hot as we are going to experience over the next few days, but it did go on for many weeks. It was also completely exceptional to the norms of the time. Hot summers were much less common in those days, but now they happen more frequently so they are less of a novelty. England’s most recent hot summer was 2018, and here we are again just 4 years later. That’s the reality of climate change.

Also, cars, trains, offices, shops, restaurants etc didn’t have aircon in 1976 so you couldn’t drive out to a big shopping mall, walk round, have lunch and spend a few hours in air conditioned comfort back then.

Highest temp in 1976 was 35.something so hotter this year. It was longer then and water was rationed with standpipes. I do think people are more 'fragile' now, then it was get on with it.

I was 16 that year. Had met my future husband. Young and in love! Just finished my o levels and finished school in May until September. I loved it. Knowing every day was going to be hot and sunny. Sunbathing in the local park with my friends, staying in the garden till late at night. Outdoor parties when my parents were on holiday. Halcyon days! Apart from the drought and water ban I don't remember the panic of it being so hot, although it wasn't 40 degrees. Everyone just got on with it. No fans, air con. Maybe it was my youth but I still look back on that summer with affection.

The grass in our garden had loads of deep cracks in it. One day I pushed a 6ft bamboo cane down one, and it went nearly all the way in.

Well, I say grass. Crispy dead brown stuff shrivelled to dust, more like.

Yes, I remember that summer. I was packing Christmas puddings at Cadbury's in Moreton, thankfully mornings only. Nylon overalls were a treat, as was thé quarry tiled floor where they did the mixing - it was clean, but you stuck to it, due to the sugar.

The afternoons were spent in the outdoor pool at Hoylake which sadly closed a year or 2 later. It was where I learned to swim in 1963.

The drifts of ladybirds everywhere, also.

That's the chap - thanks Errol

@RancidOldHag not only was the weather brilliant but the music.....phenomenal 😍😍
Happy Happy days ☺

My son was born in March that year, I remember setting off to walk about 40 minutes to town, with him in his lovely coach built pram, with a fringed canopy, I stopped at a phone box to phone my mum, as I did twice a week, as we had no phone at home. It was so hot, and I can still remember the smell of the phone box, wee and fags😫My mum advised me to go back home as it was far too hot to walk, so I trailed back home in my tie dye vest and long cheesecloth wrap around skirt. I loved the 70s, I was so happy with our little house and new baby.

I was in southeast London training to be a midwife. I felt so sorry for the expectant mums. We (pupil midwives) had to go along an enclosed pathway from one building to another that had ? Perspex sides which became black with thousands of ladybirds . I went to a local lido which was packed. Spent some nights on the roof of the hospital (we lived there)as it was so hot indoors. Tarmac melted in places. So yes I remember 1976

Probably one of the best years of my life. Anyone relate?

Yes, definitely. I was 17 and carefree. I went camping on the Isle of Wight with 7 other girls and we had a blast. I remember the electrical storms when the lightning flickered for hours but no rain or thunder.

77 was pretty good too, I think.

No, it wasn’t. It rained a lot.

I remember 1995 as well. I was living in Leeds at the time and the reservoirs in the Pennines were practically empty. They were tankering water down from Kielder Water.

Remember the ladybirds and being allowed to stay up late in the garden because of the heat. Also remember eating alot of homemade stawberry jam, I guess there was a glut!

I was 13 and went on holiday for a week to Broadstairs with a school friend and her family. Got horribly sunburned on my back and back of legs and the journey home in their car was awful. I laid in bed that night on my front with the covers off as I was radiating heat. In the early hours I got the shivers but the sunburn was so bad I couldn't bend down to pull a sheet up over me and had to yell for my mum. That's my lasting memory of 1976.

I want born in 76 but I’ve been talking about this today with my aunt, uncle and cousins. They said it was all people talked about at the time. I think there must have been hysteria being as everyone still talks about it now, not just now but every summer. The only difference is no social media, people were still concerned and there was plenty of moaning apparently despite everyone that lived through it denying it now. 🤣

My cousin was kept off school some days as he was suffering from dehydration. My aunt was a teacher and said lots of kids just didn’t go to school. She did some lessons outside on the grass as inside the school was too hot. Parts of the playground melted. There were also loads of fires near where they lived, my uncle was a fireman and said they were on high alert for weeks and had to work extra shifts to cope.

*wasn’t born