Who remembers the summer of 1976?

[DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen]

2 weeks of weather like yesterday,over 30 degrees and 45 days with no rain.

I was 5, I remember endless playing late in the evenings, dad digging a hole and lining it with tarpaulin and filling it with water so we had a paddling pool , riding my chopper bike that my parents bought from our neighbour as he'd outgrown it and lots of ice creams 😂

I do. I was doing 'O' Levels and revising in the garden. I had my first proper tan and now have skin cancer😢.

I was 7, filling my bike pannier with handfuls of ladybirds and getting bitten. We moved house and had to stay with my grandma in South London while the sale went through. The leaves on the plane trees were droopy and the streets dusty. My feet in sandals were always filthy.

I do - our house burnt down! The firemen said the sun might have started it.My brother's bedroom was full of airfix kits- lots of glue, paint and a magnifying glass. It's possible I suppose.
Funnily enough, I still look back on it as a happy summer!

I had a miscarriage that Summer,I remember a nurse asking me where I had been on holiday as I was so tanned!

I was born that summer, one of a multiple birth. My poor mother!

I was 13 and hideously self conscious about sweat marks under the arms of my school shirt. So I kept my hand knitted, very thick cardigan on the whole of the summer term.

I was 10. I had chicken pox during the heatwave and felt absolutely miserable.

No. My poor mum was pregnant with me. Due late September. Must have been awful.
I had ds in August of a “normal” year and was uncomfortable that July.

Yep - I was engaged to my first husband. We went on a week's holiday to Wales in the height of the drought. We visited Swallow Falls ... it looked nothing like this picture - there was a lot of bare, hot rocks and a tiny trickle down the middle... Ahh... I'm not allowed to upload a pic I see! Shame!

I was working as a maid cleaning hotel rooms. The beds were on wooden bases so you had to pull out the heavy mattresses to tuck in fitted sheets but to do that you had to kneel on the mattress too. It was awful. I used to cry I was so exhausted.

I was 6 and vaguely remember a gloriously hot summer playing outside on the green constantly with my neighbours.

I have one memory of 1976, because I was only two, and that was of having an operation at the hospital. I do have other vague memories of early childhood that might be from 1976 but that's the only one I can confidently date because obviously my parents remembered when it was. I do remember it being summer and very hot when I had the procedure. From 1977 my memories get much clearer and I can remember lots in detail.

We had a caravan and set out from Scotland for a two week holiday in England. I was 14. My biggest memory is of the ladybirds in Southport. We woke up and the entire car and van were covered. Then we went to a site near London and got the train in. It was so hot and we tried to buy a can of coke from a street vendor but he wouldn't sell it to us because it so expensive, aimed at overseas tourists and he showed us where to go instead- and that, and having our bags checked everywhere due to the IRA bombing campaign, is the only thing i remember from London!

Having a lovely time on the beaches in Jersey flying my Peter Powell kite and the lovely warm evenings having an evening stroll when the shops would open again for a few hours in the evening

Standing huddled in to my big sister at primary school, aged 6, terrified by the ladybirds swarming around us.

I wasn't born until 78,but I remember my grandad telling me about the ladybirds of 76

I thought he was taking the piss but other people tell me it's true

One lady said 'they where everywhere,in your hair,in your mouth,in your bra,in your shoes-and the bastards bit'

My poor mil was pregnant with dps sister at the start of the heatwave and she says she had to be careful with her and to make sure she didn't burn or dehydrate

I was doing mine too! I remember sweating buckets in the ‘exam room’ otherwise known as the school gym, with wall to ceiling windows each side! It was also the first year I got hayfever and was suffering with severe symptoms throughout the exams. :(

I do. I was 16 and had finished O'Levels. It was a long and brilliant summer. I had a part-time retail job and my friends and I were excited to start the next stage in our lives at 6th form. We lived on the coast and were at the beach every day. We had brilliant tans.

The weather broke at the very beginning of September and it didn't stop raining for months.

I remember the ladybirds. swarms of them covering the pavements and walls, you couldn't help but stand on them. We were in Yorkshire that summer visiting my Nan.
I was seven years old.

OP, you might want to read Maggie O'Farrel's book "Instructions for a heat wave", which is set during this period.

Yep. I was seven. Broke my arm falling over at my friend’s birthday party. In plaster from armpit to wrist for eight weeks. Caught chicken pox in week two.

I was 1 years old, so don't remember it; although there are baby photos. There's one photo of me sitting in a bucket of water. My parents would reference the summer of 76 for a few years afterwards.

I do!

I was 7 years old and I remember the half an hour walk home from school feeling like it was never going to end.

Then we'd strip off our uniforms and go straight out the garden to the paddling pool, whilst mum made yet another dinner of cold meats, pickles and bread.

Happy days! 😁

@DelboytrottersDnecklace your Granddad wasn't pulling your leg, I remember them kind of piling up on the pavements and the crunch when you walked on them. My own Granddad claimed that they had blown over from France, but his favourite thing was hating the French, and they got the blame for a lot of things they had nothing to do with.

Remember driving to a local reservoir and it was just an area of dry, cracked, dusty land - hardly any water 😲 oh and yes I remember the ladybirds ..that was so weird 😳