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 was nine, and we were in one of the worst affected areas. They put standpipes up on our street and came round and switched everyone's water off and secured the stopcock with a cable tie, which everyone cut off the second the man left. Us kids then poked sticks up the standpipe tap so the water sprayed everywhere and ran round screaming and having water fights. Probably not the outcome they wanted at all.

Just skimming through on my lunch break.
I can take away stand pipes, ladybird swarms and the mental image of @thebabessavedme ‘s mum 🤣

Will look forward to having a proper read through after work.

I wasn’t alive but Instructions for a Heatwave is a brilliant book by Maggie O’Farrell set during the summer of ‘76. Very evocative.

I was doing my O Levels, it was very very hot, but our school did have windows that opened, high ceilings and it was bearable inside. Once the exams were over, I spent the summer at the local lido, which has sadly now closed down. As have the next 3 nearest ones.
I don't think the temperatures were in the high 30s then though, looking at the records it seems 35 degrees was about the max.

Yes! I grew up in the US but was here for that summer. Of course as a mid-teen I had no responsibilities so it was a carefree fun summer. The hose pipe ban was a pain but as I said, nothing for us kids to worry about! It just felt like an endless sun.

I was at Teacher training college in Brighton and lived right on the seafront. Loved every day of it when lectures permitted.Just lazing in the sun was bliss. Once a sun worshipper always a sun worshipper but nowadays from the comfort of a lounger and parasol.

I was 5.5 at the time. Endless playing outside, scorched grass, ice creams, running around in swimming costumes barely getting dressed properly, I don't remember it being hot but I had lived abroad until then so was used to hit weather.

My mum was pregnant with me at the time too! She’s often told me that I felt like a little hot water bottle attached to her in the heatwave 😂

I remember my brother was only a few months old and my mum using her hairdryer set to cold to try and cool him down. I also remember my dad collecting the bath water for his garden vegetables.

I was 16. I can honestly say it was the best summer of my life. I’d finished O levels and got a brilliant Saturday job, fell in love with the manager, eventually married him. My best friend and I just partied all summer and went on an amazing holiday on a boat on the Thames. There were so many firsts that summer, sex, drinking, wild parties. The music was fantastic and if I hear anything from that year im actually transported back there in my head. I’ve no idea about water shortages, I think we did have them but I was too busy being 16. Best friend and ex husband sadly now dead as are many of our friends from that era

I had just finished my O levels . I was on holiday with my Auntie in Cornwall my mum couldnt go because my gma was ill . I remember going to Readymoney cove it was glorious ! I got a coach back from Fowey and I remember the butter melted in to the bread of my sandwiches . My lovely gma died that summer .I think she mightve lived a bit longer if it wasnt so hot but who knows ? . Stay hydrated everyone !

I turned 4 in July and I fainted in the heat and had to go hospital - I have vague memories of it - still
a lightweight now with high temps!

13, lived in a seaside town so we spent the whole summer on the beach. Burnt to a crisp!

At secondary school. My parents had a chip shop and it was over 35 degrees in there. My mother lost a lot of weight. Dad was a sales rep so did a lot of driving. No Aircon then. Strangely our school didn't close and everyone turned up. Some of our streets had cobbles (The North!!) and the tar between them became like playdough

I was around then. I was a young adult. All I can remember was we had weeks of very good weather with no rain for a long time so I didn't need to think about what whether to wear a coat or umbrella when I went out! . There was talk of drought.
It was hot but didn't seem as uncomfortable as it has been more recently but that could just be because I am much older now and less able to cope with it.

Yes, remember it well as a stand out year for lovely weather and good music on the radio.
I was 10 and we had two glorious weeks on the beaches of Jersey. (Love Jersey!).
We were on the beach every day and in those days no one seemed to use suncream that I can remember, in fact, people smothered themselves in baby oil to get a better tan. However, I can never remember burning and I can never remember the sun being as intense as it is these days. That’s not just me with a child’s memory as my mother says the same.
We also had a few days out in the car that summer to visit the reservoirs in the Brecon Beacons and The Elan Valley to see them almost empty.

I was 16, finished O levels, got a job straight away. No standpipes in my part of Durham.
Dad was still watering his allotment, I was spending my weekends and wages in the pub and on the beach.
I don't remember anyone thinking it was too hot tbh😁

I lived next door to a golf course. I remember the groundsman allowing the rough grass grow long and then getting hold of a hay baler and haymaking. my friends and I followed behind collecting lost golf balls- which we took to the golf shop and sold back to them!

no but i was conceived in it so can't have been that hot 😂

I was 7 that summer and remember the back lawn turning brown, going strawberry picking and my mum making me a 'tent' out of a sheet over the washing line so i could sit in the shade and prep the runner beans she grew on wigwam frames. We had a mad glut of beans and ate them pretty much every meal for what seemed like weeks.
I also remember being smothered in calamine lotion when my shoulders starting peeling, and the wooden 'clacking' sound of my mum's sandals, ones that everyone seemed to be wearing. Dr Scholls i think they were called.

I was 19, just started to see my new boyfriend who was eventually to become my husband, I loved the heat in those days, we went on lots of picnics and we went to Cornwall with some friends, hired a motor boat which broke down and we had to wait to be rescued and whilst we were waiting we became surrounded by a group of dolphins that came so close that we could touch them, it was magical, I still have the photo's, happy memories.

I remember sitting on the lawn in front of our house, and the grass was completely brown and crispy - no green anywhere.

I was 11.
It was a wonderful Summer.
What was lovely was the predictability of the gorgeous weather going on for so long.
They changed the definition of 'heatwave' recently and there is this talk of this being "the second heatwave of the year", when, to me, the word 'heatwave' means weeks and weeks of knowing you can go out without a cardi or a brolly, and knowing you can arrange to do anything outdoors sometime ahead without fretting about the weather. 'Being very hot' for 3 days, does not make a heatwave in my book.

Yes I was 8. I don’t remember it being massively hot weirdly, but I do remember the cracked pavements everywhere.

I remember walking home from school one day (alone!) and feeling like I could die of thirst. We had a drinking fountain at school but it wasn’t very powerful so I was clearly dehydrated!

Oh and the swarms of ladybirds - that sticks in my head really clearly.

There is a definition of heatwave for meteorology. It has nothing to do with not needing a cardi or brolly.