Does anyone remember the 2003 heatwave?

[Ursulla]

Sat here with the fan on takes me back to the summer when I bought it - it was the last one in the shop because even though it was only June it was already baking hot. I was a barmaid and it got so hot we had to hose down the barrels in the cellar. We hosed each other down as well, on slow days. It didn't matter, everyone was sweating anyway. I would walk home at 1 am when my shift finished and it was still roasting hot. I don't know if it ever got colder in any 24 hour period. Maybe at 3am, but it couldn't have been for long because the sun came up at 4.30.

When I wasn't working I sunbathed on the flat roof of my house, other neighbours were doing the same, and the parks were full of people sprawling around. It was a long, hot, languid time.

Anyone else?

Yes, DS1 was really poorly and had a high temperature. A very kind lady unboxed a delivery in Argos so I could buy 2 fans. They’re still in the garage just in case someone comes to stay and we need them for the spare rooms.

I was working in nursery and we couldn’t keep the children cool. It was too hot to have them outside for long, but it was far too hot inside the room too.

I remember the Summer of 1976 too, we had a big, red rectangular paddling pool that had blue triangle seats in the corners. It was up in the garden for weeks. All the kids in the street used to come to play in it, it was such fun.

Yes I remember everything dry in the garden and DS got sunstroke. We spent a lot of the summer in Cornwall

I remember it. I was a paper girl at the time and remember reading The Express headline claiming it was going to reach 100 degrees fahrenheit. That was my firstly memory of the media making ridiculous claims about the weather, but was true in this case!

I don't recall it at all! I was in quite a consuming training course though, and I'd not long returned from living in a very hot country, so I think I just didn't notice? I do often think "back" to the long summer that first year of covid.

Yes I got severe sunburn that blistered even though I had factor 30 on 😱

I think most people in France remember it, so it probably made an impression on anyone who was there. That was the summer lots of elderly people died from the heat. It was around 39-40 degrees for a long time (felt like a long time anyway!) even in the north.

I lived in a house share in Home Counties suburbia. All of us mid twenties with our feet in a cold paddling pool listening to the sounds of a swimming pool in the garden next door and feeling intensely jealous!

Yes because I was pregnant and vomiting and melting, all at the same time.

One of the best summers - I had just finished my GCSEs. Bliss.

Yep, I was heavily pregnant for the 2003 one, which lasted into October and ds was born last week of September so I was in one mothercare dress that fit and was comfortable for weeks, then he was just in a vest for weeks!

I gave birth to DS in May 2003- the labour ward was hotter than hades- it was bloody awful lying in a bed with rubber mattress protectors. I begged to be discharged early and get back home! Also as a child of the 70's remember 1976 and stand pipes in the street. My dad grew tomatoes in the garden - no greenhouse needed and the tarmac melted on the road. I was very young and spent all summer in a paddling pool in the garden. My mum and our next door neighbour sat around in their bikini tops and we all ended up with fantastic sun tans. You only used sunscreen if you were going 'abroad' in those days.

Similar here - was on a cheap flight holiday to Reims and remember seeing a billboard there which said 42 degrees! Nobody was out on the streets. The only bearable places to be were underground on the champagne cellar tours; and the Monoprix or the only two bars in town that had a/c. The hotel we stayed in claimed to have air conditioning, but it wasn’t much in evidence if it did — it was awful trying to sleep!

Lots of elderly French people died in the 2003 heatwave, so there was a national campaign there to raise awareness of the dangers of extreme heat for older people.

Yes. We were stuck in a boiling first floor flat all summer knowing that we were moving to a lovely house with a garden on 1st September! DH started a new job in early August and had a hellish commute for 4 weeks until we moved.

My DS had a hamster who appeared to have developed a nasty abscess so we packed it up and took it to the vet. They asked if it was male or female but I didn't know. When we got to see the vet, she told me off saying 'he' did not have an abscess but had in fact ejected his testicles because of the heat, and I had not helped by further stressing him by bringing him to the vet. She then went on to very graphically explain that this is quite common and how rabbits routinely retract their testicles making neutering very difficult.
Cue a very interesting conversation with a horrified DS on the drive home!

I remember my friend getting married and spray tans were all the rage and anyone who got one for the wedding it either melted off them or just melted onto our lovely new outfits

I remember it really clearly, I was having chemotherapy and having long stints in hospital.
It was also the year I finished chemotherapy and married my lovely dh... so a good year!

I don't remember it being particularly hot in the UK but I went to France with my family I was about 12 and it was absolutely punishing. We spent a lot of time hanging about in supermarkets just for the air conditioning.

Was at Bath University for the hottest weeks. Much sitting around the ponds or drinking after hours, perfect temperature with the strong breeze, comfortable day and night.

And then we came down off the hill to see half of the country had melted and the other half had buggered off to a coast somewhere.

I remember 1976. I was 17 and had a blast on a camping holiday on the Isle of Wight.

I also remember 1995 when the reservoirs in Yorkshire got so low that they were tankering water down from Kielder. We were just about to be put on standpipes when it started to rain.

In 2003 I remember DD's 3rd birthday party that we had in the garden. A friend lent me a bouncy castle and a ball pool but all the children wanted was the paddling pool as it as so hot. We moved house in the September then had a second heatwave. I had left DD's wax crayons in the conservatory and they all melted.

Then summer 2018 and summer 2022 - both very hot.

I do remember. I was doing my masters in London and that summer was day after day after day of sunshine and no rain. The streets were baking.

I remember the summer of 2003 very well- I was in the south of France travelling with friends and it was just so bloody hot, with even a few wildfires too. Also recall the headlines about so many elderly people dying due to the heatwave or ‘la canicule’

1990 I was admitted to hospital with pre eclampsia at 30 weeks, it was so hot,they allowed us long stays to go and sit outside for a little each day. DD was born at 35 weeks 3lbs 11oz, stayed in SCBU for 2 weeks, the first week in an incubator and then came home to be placed in my lovely coach built silver cross pram complete with broderie anglais sun canopy and insect net in the garden wearing only a nappy.

DH and I were backpacking, Paris to Rome over 3 weeks. I remember at the start of the holiday we were generally having a small bottle of water each during the day and by the end we had a two litre bottle each that we were refilling. We didn't realise it was an official heatwave till we got home and saw some news in English - made sense though! I think we'd have been more careful if we'd known tbh. I thought I was just being a typical Scot who can't stand the heat!

Yes. I was pregnant and ill with it. I felt quite sick and dizzy for much of the summer.

Yes, it was hideous, I was oregnant (early stages) all I did was work and sleep. I'm not a heat lover. I remember hating the drought in 1976 too, in fact that's what started my hatred of heatwaves I think. Not enjoying the current one either, too hot to do anything useful and have ended up not really getting anything done today.