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!!

From the book

Was living in Iran but can remember the letters my Auntie wrote to mum about the hot hot summer in the UK. Oh, and that everyone was wearing tartan because of a group called the Bay City Rollers :-)

You watched too many 70's cop shows! 😁

@PistachioTiramisu

Bergasol!!!

Yes, it smelled fan tastic too

More of a general 70s thing, but I just remembered the white dog turds. 😂

I was 7. I lived in a square ended cul de sac. It was a'new build' when my parents bought the house & many of the houses were bought by young couples too. So loads of kids & all the families got on well. Most of the summer was spent in my large rectangle paddling pool with most of the kids from the street. Lots of beakers of ribenna & ice lollies.

& playing in the sprinkler on the front lawn.

good days ❤️

Did they ever look into / explain why it got so hot in 1976?

We’re quick to conclude hot summers are a result of climate change (which I agree with to an extent - it is of course a factor), so I wonder if there was the same worry back then?

It was a horrible summer for me. I had chickenpox and was so itchy and uncomfortable. I was covered in calamine lotion. I was also scared of ladybirds which kept getting caught in my hair (which was a bit wild and frizzy). On the plus side, we were out all day long on bikes ( I remember my Chopper but that might have been a couple of years later).

I had my first job making Easter eggs for the following year. I worked 7.30 till 17.00hrs. I used to eat my lunch looking over the local river that ran by the factory. It looked so cool and inviting.

Getting home and helping mum go and get water from the nearest standpipe. I didn’t notice the heat then. I sure do now.

I was 18 living in Hampstead in 1976. I spend lovely summer evenings up on the heath with my friends drinking Blue Nun and eating scotch eggs and potato salad from M&S. Wonderful memories.

Massive Heatwave and water shortages.

Ladybirds

Spam sandwiches on the beach every day

Was one of four 20 something young women holidaying in a caravan in the middle of a field in Keswick - enlivened somewhat by the arrival of four 20 something males in the next caravan along!

It was my O level year and I remember going for my results with my friends. No parents went in those days. Afterwards we all went into town then to sit in the park. I had my first steady boyfriend that year, we spent our dates walking round the park or on country walks. It was an idyllic summer.
We didn't have water shortages where we lived and I don't remember being inconvenienced by the heat, but we lived on a hill in the open and it was always breezy even on the hottest day.

And Afternoon Delight by Starline Vocal Band, just says summer to me....

I wasn’t born but it’s funny seeing how no one used to take bottles of water as not much had changed by the time I was born in the mid 80s. I always remember as a kid being really thirsty on days out as we never took bottles of water out. So different compared to today where school ask us to send the kids in with big refillable bottles and on school trips they want them to take 2-3 disposable bottles for a day!

I was 17, did my A levels and passed my driving test. We went to France, Italy and Switzerland for the holidays and were quite glad to have cooler temperatures as well as some rain, which had been absent from the south west since Easter.

I was 7 that year - my sister was born in the august

The Galleon open air swimming pool near Cheadle, Blue Jeans, Elton and Kiki Dee, crop top, deep tan, flat stomach 🤣

I was 9 My family went on a very unusual three week holiday abroad to visit relatives that summer - actually the only holiday abroad in my entire childhood!

So we missed some of it - but when we got back, I saw that all the little felt covered figurines I’d left in the windowsill had been completely bleached on one side by the sun 😵
So I knew something strange had happened while we were away 🤣

Having come back from somewhere hot it was pretty easy to just continue enjoying the hot weather - that’s how I remember it anyway!

I would hate that summer now - I think I just about coped with 2018 but eight years on my system does not cope with high temperatures at all. And I take a few of the medications that make it hard for your body to regulate temperature.

Also no water shortages where I was, although I’m sure we were told to conserve water.

I was 8. I think it was the only time in my whole life that I had a proper suntan. Most of the summer was spent in the paddling pool but then I read recently that there were water shortages/ standpipes in the street but I don't remember those?

I had the smaller version of a chopper called a chipper ! I was always envious of the neighbours who had choppers. We would be out all day playing on them.

We didn't go out anywhere unless we were going to be back by 10.30am with the exception of grandparent visits (rural, much cooler), I got nipped by a ladybird and the biggest secret of all was that around 8.30pm, the hosepipe would be connected to the kitchen tap, snake through the garden underneath cardboard and taken to the vegetable patch to be turned on a trickle so that we'd have food.

The cats were permanently greyed out because of their dust bathing and the dog moved himself to live outside permanently instead of sleeping in the kitchen, which meant that I spent a lot of time with them by myself (I was 3.5) as I'd take myself off outside when I woke up - I wasn't allowed in the garden after 9am as it was too hot - and was very pleased with myself that I could climb up the belfast sink stand to fill bowls and the rabbit's 3 bottles with water without any help to make sure they were all OK.

The main things I remember were animals and plants - sweetpeas and Forget-me-nots at my grandparents, the birds, bumblebees in the Foxgloves and when I was watering our Runner Beans with a little purple watering can, loads of roses, hydrangeas, other gardens with fuschias danging over the fences, the toads and newts in the pond and the mob of angry starlings divebombing my brother when he picked up a fledgling and put it on top of the neighbour's originally WWII brick shelter/shed to save it from cats, meaning he came back via a bird cherry tree instead of the simple route.

Went to the Scottish Highlands for 3 weeks with extended family. Brilliant sunshine and clear blue skies for the whole trip. Stunningly beautiful but I can confirm the sea was still cool ( as I discovered swimming from one of the white sand beaches near Morar )