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 was 5
I remember bike rides, playing out all day, yellow grass, don't remember being hot at all!

My mum had a big silver cross pram I remember there was a little seat that my sister used to sit on she was two years older than me 😂
I was 2 and a half in the summer of 1976 so I don't remember much apart from sitting in a yellow tub full of water on the front doorstep .

I was working as a playleader in a rough area of the city. As if it wasn't hot enough, some of the older boys thought setting fire to the surrounding scrubby grassland would be fun. On one day, we had to call he fire brigade three times!

I've just remembered my dad dug a paddling pool in the garden. He dug a big hole, all the neighborhood kids helped and he lined it then secured the edges with big stones and filled it. God, that was so exciting 😂

I was 6

Ladybirds! Everywhere
Dried up reservoirs on the news
We still had running water but lots of places on standpipes

Biggest memory (apart from the ladybirds) was sunburnt shoulders - they blistered and it looked as though I had a fried egg on each one. Gross. SPF and skin cancer awareness not a big thing back then!

I was 4 and just about remember the holiday we went on that year to Wales. My parents were clued up and shade, sun protection, etc.

It was glorious, I was 9 years old. Endless weeks roaming about messing about by the brook. Football and cricket in the park and literally everyone joining in. The Wurzels! My favourite song I've got a brand new combine harvester We went to Penzance and it was magical. I remember standing in our street late August when the rain came and feeling so sad it was over.

I was 10.

No suncream so lots of peeling skin

The heats clearly getting to you! Chill out.

I was 4 so don't really remember it. I do remember the heatwave of 1983 though coz I was grounded for most of it! Stuck inside boiling water hi g my friends play in the pool.

I was 12. I spent a lot of that summer in North Wales. Me and my friend, rowing my dads dinghy all around the harbour. Playing on the rocks and swimming in the sea. It was glorious. We all seemed to just get on with life..

It was the year I did my O Levels. We had Australian friends over and they were disappointed not to see our "green and pleasant land". Everything was brown and patched.

No extreme heat warnings though and no helpful advice from the met office. We just carried on with our lives, albeit with less water than usual.

Happy days.

I was seven that summer. We went to Morecambe in the first week of the summer hols, it was glorious with a lovely sea breeze and then at the end of the holiday we went to Durham to stay with family. We had days out at the South Shields area. I can remember the plague of ladybirds at Roker beach, my mum would never go there again.
I'm not a mad fan of the heat these days but that summer was wonderful. Though saying that, my mum would have me and my brother in at the hottest time of the day, we were so envious of friends who could okay out from dawn till dusk.

I was looking at some photos of 76 in the paper
yesterday and wondering if one of the reasons people coped better was because it was very noticeable that everyone was much, much thinner than they are now.

I wasn’t born until 77, but my parents constantly refer back to the summer of 76 - my Dad was working at an outdoor pool so I think it was something of an idealistic summer for him.

I was 4. I remember a paddling pool and water fights with old washing up liquid bottles and jif lemons. And the ladybirds getting all over my Aunt's dog on a trip to Pickmere.

There is a picture of me aged 3 in a pram, with sun hat and sunglasses, wailing, on holiday. I vaguely remember the heat and it making me feel so uncomfortable and sick. I think I spent the holiday whining, my poor parents.

I remember it well. I was 14 staying with family friends for a few weeks here in England. My friend had a pony and was doing a show and wanted to wash him (he was grey). We were out in the country no one was going to see us so she did.
It was an idyllic time - too young to be worried about our futures, just discovering boys but not had any heartbreaks, exams years away. All we had to do was be.

Vaguely - I was three! Skinny dipping in the paddling pool is my main memory, purple flowers, ladybirds. That's it!

I remember being in the school playground aged 6, huddled up to my big sister as I was scared of all the ladybirds swarming around.

I was 11, in first year. We had a pool at our School, you could use after classes finished. I also got a small tent for my birthday, I slept out in our garden for what seemed like weeks. My best memory is Guide camp, swimming in a cool lake in Oxfordshire for hours every day, getting a red nose and eating a never ending supply of 2p ice pops, listening to Abba.

My family were still in Yorkshire that summer, we moved in the Autumn, to Lancashire.

It rained that day, and it seems like it rained every day since, unless it snowed.

The main difference was it lasted ages so you got used to it.

No extreme heat warnings though and no helpful advice from the met office. We just carried on with our lives, albeit with less water than usual

The helpful advice abounded, but it came from the government, not the Met Office (formal weather warning system didn't exist then.

There was a huge Public Information campaign, both about staying safe and conserving water (there was even a government minister appointed for the latter). It was all over every news broadcast (quite easy, as fewer channels and fewer broadcasts!), on public service broadcasts, and in all the newspapers (often front page).

I was 29, and living in a south facing flat with big picture windows. I worked in a large office on the 11th floor with panoramic windows that got the sun in the afternoons. We also had about 14 punch card machines (if anyone remembers them!) which gave off heat, so it was really unpleasant. The boss had an aircon unit fitted into an upper window, which did help a bit.

We were buying a house at the time, and moved in at the beginning of September, and shortly after that, the heatwave broke and it rained! I well remember the plague of ladybirds, that had come from France I believe? They covered everything, and littered the pavement, and they did bite!

I was 8.

I remember vividly the smell when it finally rained.

No hysteria. Our mums didn't do drama. No way ever on earth we wouldn't have gone to school.

Yes, one of the best years of my life too.

Growing up by the sea. Went to a summer school group every morning and then straight to the beach in the afternoon. All my mates from the street went and parents turned up if they were free. There were always someone there to look after us. I used to buy a panda pop cream soda on the way...loved it! We had to be home for tea and not go anywhere else. That was about the only rules.

We had standpipes. My friends Mum had just given birth to twins, so the pipe was outside their house because that house had to stay on mains water. That meant we had to walk up a hill to collect ours. We got soaked walking back down with it slopping all over the bucket sides.

That's all I remember to be honest. I was 9 and every day was pretty much the same.

At weekends we would drive out to Woolacombe beach early evening with Mum and Dad, when it was quieter, and go for a swim and play in the sand. We used to stop at a pub with a garden and play area on the way home and drink ice cold lemonade and lime. That's where my love for the drink came from. I remember those days every time I have it.

The 70s were hard for many of our parents. Little holiday from work and pay was probably quite low. Council.houses were starting to become hard to get and my parents were offered a council mortgage to get them off the list. But as kids it was a fabulous time. No school pressure, freedom to play and explore, fewer cars so safer in that respect and our doors were open and people just came and went. My grandparents lived by the sea with a door to back road and o e to the front. Friends used to pop in back, say hi, and walk out the front! As a short cut! Seems so funny now...the current owners have blocked up the back door. The end of an era!