Memories of Summer 1976

[PistachioTiramisu]

If you are ancient, like me, what are your best memories of the summer of 1976? I had just started work - in an office without AC! - but we had flextime so I would arrive at work at 8 and leave at 4. I had a boyfriend with a speedboat and we went out in it every evening, taking a picnic which I had bought at lunchtime, and cooling a bottle of wine in the sea! They were idyllic times, but I never remember feeling too hot. Had the best suntan of my life that year - thanks Bergasol!!

Yeah always salads and cold cuts. Mum made potato salad and boiled hard boiled eggs to have cold.

Sorry if this is a stupid question but what happened in the summer of 1976? Why would people remember it?

Oh gosh yes, the standpipes. I'd forgotten those. Looking back it must have been a frightening time for those old enough to understand the implications of the drought, I'm quite glad I was too young to be worried about it. I do seem to remember concern mounting in the media as the drought progressed.

Yes' I so wanted someone to take me for a ride on their bike handlebars!

I was 10/11 in 75/76 (it all blurs into one huge heatwave to me). So many ice pops and my mum and dad making a tasty orange squash thing with loads of fresh (whole) oranges. We diluted it with soda water (from a soda syphon).

Playing out all the time slathered in Amrre Solaire or Soltan sur cream, and on Tuesdays all piling into the nearest friend's hose (there were about 10 of us - we switched around the houses to be fair on the mums) and watched Spiderman with loads of orange squash and Penguin bars.

Weekends camping at Hurley and swimming (!) In the Thames. And once seeing an amphibious 2 seater sports car whizzing along the water then driving up a ramp and on to the road.

We were lucky and never had the water switched off.)

My mum used to own Triumphs in the 60s, not spitfire. And Hillman Minx. One of her triumphs was convertible.

I was 9. My best friend had a tee shirt that said Save Water, Shower With A Friend. I remember seeing people queuing for water on tv. We were lucky ( privileged I now know) as we had a swimming pool and spent practically all day in it during the holidays. At school, our teachers took lessons outside into shade.

Oh God that's so sad, I'm sorry.

I was born in the summer of 76. My mum said being pregnant with the temperatures they had was horrendous, she said she really struggled towards the end of her pregnancy.

Intense heatwave and a severe drought, I forget how long we went without rain, but it was exceptional.

It was very hot, a heatwave. Temps exceeded 30F across UK. 35.9 in Gloucestershire one day. From June to August that year.

Yes. It was open 35-79. Apart from WW2. I worked at Croydon Water Palace in the 90s one summer.

It was a heatwave summer, although as someone else had said 75 was also hot. I had my first son in 75 and remember the heat and again when he was 1, I can remember playing in the garden with him all summer.

We used to drive a short distance to the nearest splash area, a circular concrete sort of pool with fountains inside (I think) or filled with water so you could splash around. This was free. On most parks/commons. We went to the Streatham Common one.

We had an outdoor pool at Teacher Training College and it was great going in!
Probably wouldn't pass Health and Safety now but it was lovely.
I remember the ladybirds too.🏊‍♀️🐞🐞

I remember the Croydon Water Palace. Loved it. Mum took us loads of times as teens with friends. Miss it. 😢

This will be outing!
Cycling around Swindon on a bone shaker bike like Call the Midwife as a student midwife doing home visits.

I think we ate like that all summer too. The salads of the 70s were not like salads are now!

I was at school. My mixed race friend told me she loved the heat wave as everyone else was so brown, she didn't show up as mixed race. I was mortified as I had never noticed she was mixed race until she said this. Any way, I think I managed to style it out.

It was hot, but the main thing wasn’t the heat it was the exceptionally long period without rain, so there was water rationing and a hosepipe ban. Everything was scorched and dry, trees were brown. I was a child then and I have been through hotter weather since, 2003 it was really hot, it got to 100 degrees Fahrenheit that August, 2005 the Summer was really hot too, the tube bombings, and very high temperatures. 1976 just stands out because the sunny days went on and on, it wasn’t unbearably hot most of the time, in the 80s, but it was a relief when it finally rained, I think it was September before we had any rainfall.

I was working as a scientist - our lab was on the top floor and sweltering. Most of us were working in our lab coats with just underwear beneath 😁.
By 1978 I was working on an experimental nuclear site. Some folks that had been working there in '76 had spent days that summer helping firefighters beat down the fires on heathland alongside the site as there was a prototype reactor very near the site boundary.

Im currently reading Maggie OFarrells Instructions for a Heatwave, set during that summer, nice to read all your comments about what it was like

We had a fortnight's holiday in Edinburgh. My mother had got it quite last minute and it was a student flat.
What a dump! My 14 yo heart sank at the prospect of being stuck there for 2 weeks.

Thank goodness the weather was so beautiful we were barely in the place apart for sleeping.

I was 10 & remember just the best time - I lived on an estate in a village where we knew nearly everyone & us kids would roam around from back gardens to the pond, woods, river & village green. I used to pull back the bushes in our front garden & they were absolutely full of ladybirds. Makes me sad now as you rarely see one 🐞🐞🐞

Being pregnant and huge with my second child. Walking to MIL's house with my toddler then collapsing with relief in the paddling pool in her back garden. Getting up in the morning and standing in the bath with the toddler using a hair spray nozzle thing attached to the taps and spraying us both..not exciting stuff but memorable for some reason.

I remember the tar in the road being really soft. And infestations of ladybirds. The days seemed never ending, out playing constantly.