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 was at primary school and remember being fascinated by the taps in the toilets as no water came out when you turned them on!

The frightening bit though was that we lived surrounded by woods, heather and ferns and every day the fire engines came hurtling down as sections went up in flames. It was all completely scorched by the end of the summer and took a few years to grow back

Yes, considered the longest drought 1975 to 1976.

I’d forgotten about the ladybird swarms.

I had chickenpox and was itching like mad. Really miserable and covered in calamine lotion.

I don’t remember it as I was only 9 months or so old, but there are lots of photos of me on beaches wearing only a nappy & a sun hat - certainly no SPF. The thought of a baby like that in that heat makes me shudder now 😱

I was 17/18. Dairy farming and seaside area. I remember the brown fields and hungry livestock and scared farmers. But also the endless sunshine and everyone being sunburned then suntanned. And the luxury of being able to waste the sunshine by being indoors because it was going to be sunny again tomorrow.

And a brief thunderstorm, we all ran outside and stood in it, and I learned the word “petrichor”.

Iirc - there was 15 consecutive days where the temperature reached ‘heatwave’ levels but either side of that was still very hot and dry. That’s why it felt so much longer for those of us who lived through it.

I was 6 & my sister 9. Mum took us to the park very early in the morning before the heat was too intense. We were playing on the swings by 8am, while Mum sat on a bench and wrote an air mail letter to her brother & family who had emigrated to New Zealand the year before.

I’ve done same job….i feel for you!

Definitely not. I was born Nov 1975!!

I was 14 went on holiday with friends . Stopped at a pub on the way it had been a white building but every square inch was covered with ladybugs. It was like a horror movie.
Cars started crashing, the drivers were fainting at the wheel.

@3beesinmybonnet I also remember that cricket quote.

I turned 12 that summer, it was amazing, but I got heatstroke which wasn't fun.

@AlecTrevelyan006 you're right, two scorching heatwave weeks, but about six weeks of glorious weather in total.

I don't remember being very hot but that probably because we'd lived in a very hot country until 6 months before so like the pp from Singapore it wasn't so bad. I remember everything being scorched and dry and all my memories are 'bright' because it was so sunny. People must've gone bananas when it finally rained.

I do! I was also 5 and I seem to remember spending s lot of time in an old baby bath in the back garden, or boiling in my plastic Wendy House.

I know about the ladybirds but don't know if I actually remember them or just know of them because of people talking about them . So they like the heat,is that why there were so many?

I just posted about this in the 2003 thread! Brick in the loo cistern, sunstroke at the beach, etc.
My primary school had an outdoor swimming pool we could use and because I had got sunburnt I had peeling skin…. I went home because several other children were telling my back looked horrible - it was a collection of water in the peeling skin which made it look like grapes were hanging from my back!

I was 9 and have absolutely no memory of it all, despite usually having a good long term memory.

We had just moved in the previous November and it did take me a long time to get used to the new house and school. It might have also been the summer my mother started using me as her slave so maybe I didn’t see much of it.

Because of a warm spring and hot summer the aphid population grew, aphids are the biggest source of food for ladybirds.

I was 9 my sister was 7. She broke her arm and had a full cast past her elbow but at least she didn’t have to worry about sleeves!

I don’t remember anything about the ladybirds. 🤔
I remember my brother and I having a washing up bowl full of water to paddle in. Water was rationed a little as we had well water. I remember driving past the moors that were on fire. Back then it was a one off. Sadly nowadays it’s a regular occurrence in spring.

I was 8 years old - on holiday got heatstroke - it was horrific-

I was 9 and just remember flopping in the garden and splashing in a paddling pool for weeks on end. It was great but must have been awful for my dad who worked on a building site.

I was 12. I don't remember much about it except the standpipe at the end of the road and my father's obsession with ferrying water from the river to the allotment in buckets.
I don't remember the ladybirds at all.
I think the slogan for saving water by not flushing the loo was ' If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down.'

I had two young children, aged 6 and 4.The younger one was at nursery, which was in an old house with a very large garden at the back.There was a paddling pool so the children were outside everyday.By the time you went to collect them they were all stark naked as their clothes were constantly wet from being in and out of the pool.I cannot imagine that being allowed now.In the school holidays we were at the beach nearly everyday, my DH and I worked alternate shifts in a hospital so which one of us was not working took the children to the beach, sometimes when neither of us were at wok, my DH would head off with the children and I would tidy the house and join them later.
This glorious summer went on and on, until one day the rains came and it poured from the heavens for days, and then at the end of this memorable summer, my much loved grandfather died suddenly in his sleep.I cried for ages.

We lived in a seaside resort in Kent at the time and with two DC, spent a lot of time on the beach.
We also went to the Seasalter Festival, near Whitstable where despite half the bands not turning up and a heavy police presence, we still managed to have a great time. It ended, along with the summer, in a spectacular thunderstorm.

I was 11, definitely remember the ladybirds and being bitten, we were near the coast so spent many days on the beach and we used to go down after school.

I also remember the drought, and a Minister for Drought being appointed and people being urged to share baths. When the rain came my brother and I put our swimsuits on and danced in the garden.