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 6 and remember seeing the cracks in the ground. It was unbelievably hot 🥵 wasn’t it? I recall when the rain came - pure petrichor heaven.

It’s truly divine, that smell.

I was 20, I had major surgery at the end of May and was signed off work for 13 weeks. I’d had to give up my bedsit as I didn’t get sick pay, and was lodging rather miserably with my boyfriend’s parents in Surrey. We had a week in Devon and there were signs everywhere that it was a drought area and not to waste water.

I was loving Bergasol sun lotion that year, I wonder when they stopped making it.

ETA I’ve just Googled and it is still made!

I was born in the middle of that heatwave. I was my parents first child and when they brought me home from hospital they contemplated putting on the central heating!! Thankfully they decided against it.

It was magical. I was in my second year at what was then a polytechnic. I shared a cheap, grotty flat with 2 other girls in an area full of the same. We had parties, street parties, lots of music. I had a brief relationship with a very attractive, older man, made lots of new friends. It was a coming of age.

🫣 You survived!

We were on holiday in Norfolk for two weeks. We stayed in a caravan in Wells next the sea. It was a really fantastic holiday.

I got a T shirt printed with Save Water on the front and Shower with a Friend, on the back. My Mum hated it and tried to stop me from wearing it. I left school and it was such a hot summer. There were hose pipe bans. Everyone's grass died and if it didn't you'd be suspended of watering it. I recall playing loud music in my bedroom and Mum hated that too.

I do. I was a student nurse having to wear a thick cotton dress with a high collar and tight sleeves. In addition, a starched apron and a frilly cap. It was torture. And of course tights were mandatory. 🥵

I do - it was my first time abroad, we have taken the caravan to France and the site had a swimming pool and the most amazing see-saws.
I heard the word drought for the first time- the water at the site was switched off for this reason and they just kept putting more and more chlorine into the pool- surprised I didn’t Blanche rather than tan- and they filled up some skips with water to use in the cloakrooms/ dish washing troughs
Happy times and like others, happy 📋 of more innocent times

Wow, I didn’t realise France had a drought too!

I remember it. I was 12 yrs old. I mostly remember my mother complaining as she ran a cafe and spent the day behind a coffee machine and in the kitchen cooking. It was sweltering in there. I used help out a bit on Saturdays and it really was hot
I also remember filling containers if we knew the water was being cut off that day and the queues at a standpipe in the street across the road from our house. Also sharing bath water . ( grim!)

I spent a good chunk of the heatwave in hospital but the rest of that summer was lovely so I got to enjoy it. My freckles joined up and formed one huge freckle that covered my face so I looked tanned. We had a caravan holiday in August and when we got back the back garden also looked like one giant garden-shaped freckle thanks to the drought. The grass was crunchy and for once there were no slugs to keep us from running around barefoot.

I was crewing a yacht 🤗 Not the decoratively-lounging type of 'crewing', sadly, but I did wear a bikini while hauling ropes and battening things down. Got my first and last dose of proper sunburn. The waters were phosphorescent at night, as even the British sea had warmed up enough to get the algae blooming (there was a jellyfish bloom, as well, so impulsively diving in was off the cards).

It was a glorious, glorious summer.

@Slatterndisgrace - we were so cut off in those days it was a surprise for us to learn the uk was effected on our return.
This has just reminded me- there was a huge stone circle next to the campsite (thanks to an amazing tv children’s show in the uk I knew there were stone circle s but thought they must be a uniquely English invention.,, ) and the grass caught fire- I seem to think it was thought to be arson- so they had to use the water from the skips to put it out

I remember the ladybirds. And the teacher putting some kind of stickers above the taps in the classroom and telling us that they said that we shouldn’t turn the taps on - something about conserving water.

We were! And going abroad was more about experiencing a different culture than now. Other parts of Western Europe also had droughts - I feel quite ignorant to not to have known that until now!

@Slatterndisgrace -you weren’t ignorant- we were all so young then and I can imagine uk news was so overwhelmed by the novelty of the situation the reporting would be entirely uk- centric.
Was so lucky that my family took the plunge and decided to go over the channel. And yes, expericing a different culture truly was an eye opener- frites and baguettes were amazing and visiting the Chateaux along the Loire was an experience that remained with me to this day.
The French would often be campaigning in cities we travelled through and had actual troubadours who held up the traffic as they collected francs and centimes for their causes.
Amazing times, amazing places and incredible people ❤️

Yes. I lived in the US but spent the summer with a friend here. We were 14. She had a pony and was doing show jumping and I remember breaking the hose pipe ban to wash her horse. It was a fun summer!

Probably already been answered but we had a twin tub washer till 1983. You would fill it with water and wash everything - cleanest things first then rinse them put something a bit further in wash then rinse them and the luckiest things last! So really washing could be done in one go!
Sounds mad now but we didn't have many clothes so wore more than one day. And as we only drank water etc didn't spill juice down them or chocolate cos that was once a week treat.
I don't remember being smelly but we only bathed on a Sunday night until the early 80s.
It was like the crossover times from the olden days to the modern world!
I remember the stand pipes and buckets but I don't remember it being a massive problem!
Also we didn't have hanging baskets and loads of planters just a few bedding plants in the garden and roses etc so the garden didn't need watering like we do now.
It would be a big deal to me now!

I remember the standpipes to get water from Don't remember feeling really hot but I suppose I must have been.

I was 5. I apparently had German measles. I do remember a little bit of it.

I was 7 and yes I remember it. It felt like it went on for weeks and weeks and weeks!

I had my first baby, my darling daughter in May 1976.
i was breastfeeding and was so, so hot and uncomfortable.
i lived 200 miles away from home and missed my family, my mam, so much.
When I went back to Wales the water was limited to standpipes and I can still feel the sun beating down as we carried the containers back to the house.
I had Terry nappies so washing them was difficult.
I know I was sad as I couldn’t dress my baby in the lovely clothes we had received as gifts because she just wore a nappy most of the time.
I may be looking back through rose-tinted glasses but I don’t recall the heat being as humid as it is now.
I can’t believe so many years have passed and I’m so grateful to have my daughter, I’m so proud of my hottest summer baby.
😊

4th year (year 10) work experience at Marks and Spencer in Bradford. Very very hot...folding and refolding shirts and jumpers (used to be on shelving in those days).