Summer 1976

[SteviesNicks]

So we keep hearing on the news that we are set to break the records for the highest June temperature in set in 1976

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_British_Isles_heatwave

Were you around during that summer?
What are your memories of it?
I was 2 so don't remember a thing!

I have vague happy memories of paddling pools and tip tops.

@SteviesNicks

This thread from yesterday also shows people's experiences

I was born in May. My Mum didn't need any baby clothes for me. I just wore a nappy!

I was 16, doing O’levels ( a severe stomach bug went round at the time and a lot of us missed exams)
I did my revising in the garden, got the best tan ever while body boarding in Cornwall, snd was madly in love for the first time.
Bliss.

I was 12 and we spent the summer in Paignton sorting out my Grandmother’s house who had died. My Mum and her best friend took us to the beach most days and I remember them drinking G&Ts on the beach 🤦‍♀️Fun times .

I was at primary school - we played out as usual -No sunblock to be seen. If we were thirsty we were allowed to get a drink of water from the tap in the sink in our classroom There were no cups so you'd have to drink it out of the tap . Pretty sure at the time it probably came down lead pipes. I also remember there'd been millions of ladybirds that year. I think there was the odd concession to being allowed to get an ice lolly from ice cream van but in the main it was homemade watered down cordial versions. our school trip that year was a trip to see steam engines that was a hot day!

It was the Summer I turned 12, it was awesome, no school cardigans or blazers I walked to school in a short sleeve summer dress every day, lessons were under the shade of the big trees in the gounds and life was idylic.

I was 14, my mum was heavily pregnant, my dad bought us both sunloungers, the impossible to get on ones, however you got on they would boing up at one end, or both ends, or collapse in the middle, much fun was had watching my poor mum (who made her own sun tan lotion with olive oil and vinegar!) try to get on and off the thing😂She spent most of that summer smelling like a chip, slithering around and swearing.

We lived opposite a river and went swimming everyday, was lovely.

I was 12 and did my paper round before school. My Mum went to Greece on holiday and I went to Scotland to stay with the grandparents. I had the better weather and was as brown as a berry. I lived close to a huge lido and we went every day in the school holidays. I remember stand pipes and ladybirds

I was 13 turning 14 in the September

I spent the Summer with my grandparents in South Wales. I remember the River Wye being so low all the salmon were dying.
Thankfully my aunt was a teacher and we had use of the school swimming pool for the whole of the summer, it was lovely up there., I dont remember it being hot at school , just during the school holidays

I was 8, I remember the dene where I lived dried up and we made dens in it using the tree roots at the sides as ‘stairs’ to climb in and out. I also remember burning the parting on my head due to having tight ‘bunches’ hairstyle and having to wear a straw sun hat to stop it happening. No one really used sunscreen, we certainly didn’t have any in my family home.

I was 15 and felt a bit miserable anyway - waiting for my life to properly start and thinking every other girl was having a way better time, was prettier and had loads of boyfriends. So lying on my bed feeling all forlorn and hot…so very hot.

Now I’m old I’m no longer forlorn, but still too hot

I was 7 . Loads of caterpillars and ladybirds. A lot of lessons outdoors at school and eating jam sandwiches cos it was too hot!

I was four and I remember playing out and the standpipe was outside the house. Was that the same year that there were loads of ladybirds?

I was 9 and lived in Belfast. We don’t usually get the temperatures seen elsewhere in these situations, but that year was different. I remember running around the street in my swimming costume all day and trying to sit on the pavement outside our house but the ground was too hot. We lived in a small terrace and only had a tiny patch of paved garden at the front. We built a shelter, that stayed up for weeks, using blankets tied to the fence and a step ladder and sat in there in the shade drinking juice and eating ice lollies. I also remember using the discarded sticks of said lollies to dig up the melted tarmac at the edge of the road😂

I walked Hadrian’s Wall. It was very, very hot!

I was 11.

Sharing bath water and then using said bath water to flush the loo and water the garden.
Tarmac melting in the pavements on the walk home from school.
Yellow/brown grass everywhere and huge cracks in the ground.
Ladybirds everywhere and also a plague of stag beetles, or was that the previous year which was also a hot, dry summer?
My siblings getting heat stroke.
Stand pipes elsewhere in the country, featured on the news, but that wasn't something we personally experienced.
It was the end of my primary school days but I don't remember it affecting those last school days in any way. I do think we just got on with life more in those days.

I was 8 and living in a first floor flat in London. It was hot.
we all shared the bath water - family of 4.
We had to take buckets to a stand pipe in the next street to collect water and then carry them back and up the stairs.
Our playground at school was just one large square of tarmac. No grass, no cover. I remember at lunch time we would all press ourselves up against hte wall of the school to try and get in the 6" of shadow from the overhanging roof - it didn't really work!
No one had hats, suncream wasn't really a thing, and no one carried water bottles. The queues for the fountains at break and lunch were very long.
We were lucky that our flats had a small rea of grass - I remember my mum pegging an old bedspread across two washing lines so we had a bit of shade, but it was so hot.
We didn't have a car, or much money to spare, so there were no trips to the coast or swimming pools. It was just unbearably hot for about 2 months.

I was 10, I remember the heat seemed endless. I was a bookworm so just wanted to be indoors reading, too hot to be in the garden. I remember reports on the tv news of reservoirs running dry and people in some areas having you get water supplies from stand pipes. That didn’t happen to us, but I know we were worried that it would.

I was 4, all I remember was being shoved under a tree with ice lollies. I do have a weird memory of queuing up at a stand pipe for water but I don’t know if that’s a real memory or not? Did we do that?

I was nine then, and stupidly walked around outside without any shoes on. I can remember walking up our road on a very hot pavement.

16 just left school. Family holiday to the Isle of Wight. Every day on the beach.
Made friends with a girl who was staying in the same guest house.
Still friends today.

Just remembered getting tar from the road all over my hands and clothes and my mum using butter to get it off. Don’t know if it worked. How did anyone even know to try it?

My Mum always used butter to get tar off our clothes - it used to wash up on south coast beaches. Hopefully, that is a thing of the past now.

Same, we used to get it on ourselves on the beach and Mum used to use butter.