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 9 sunny and hot for the whole of the summer holidays .
Spent lots of time with my friend perfecting the dance routine to ‘Save all your kisses for me’ which had won Eurovision earlier in the year .
We had a paddling pool and lots of creamola foam drinks.
Oh yes the tar on the new housing estate lived on melted on all the roads .
There were also loads of ants but not sure if that was heat related .

I was early 20s and working in central London and commuting, so probably the hottest place in the country. At that time I always felt the cold and did not mind the heat.
We had to wear tights in the office and I used to take them off for the journey home. We went abroad for a holiday and, on our return, it was hotter at Gatwick than on the med.
It was definitely the first hot summer, but that kind of heat seems much more normal now. I don't cope at all well with heat now!

I was 7/8 in 76, and lived in Devon on the coast so very fond memories of that summer

I was working in a hospital kitchen as a summer job whilst at uni. I wore my overall and a pair of knickers nothing else.

I remember spectacular thunderstorms

Hum

this is a heatwave in that you CANT do things outdoors without worry

Yes, I was little but I vividly remember queuing up at the standpipe for water. Luckily for us it was right outside our house so we never had to wait too long. Other than that I just remember long days in the garden playing and enjoying myself - I was too young to have to suffer the worries that went along with it I suppose.

I was 13 and was lucky to live on the coast. After school, we'd go home to change out of school uniform then cycle to the beach. Spend a couple of hours messing around then head home to help prepare dinner.

Every day of the holidays, we spent at the local open air swimming pool, sadly long gone, unsupervised except for a couple of lifeguards.

Happy carefree days 😎

'Being very hot' for 3 days, does not make a heatwave

Oh god, not this thread as well 🙄

It literally does. From the MetOffice:
"A UK heatwave threshold is met when a location records a period of at least three consecutive days with daily maximum temperatures meeting or exceeding the heatwave temperature threshold. The threshold varies by UK county."

Having a drinks bottle at primary school for the first time and regular water breaks from one of those coloured metal beakers and jugs. Must have been council issue.

We were told to stay in the shade at playtime and lunchtime.

Long days after school playing outside. Building mazes and ‘rooms’ with grass cuttings, new orange ‘leather’ mules and cotton summer dresses.

Weekends with a picnic at the river.

Strawberries for tea and ice-cream floats made with either lemonade or cream soda. These were even better if the ice cream was pushed down into the fizzy pop and then put in the fridge overnight.

Yes, I was a young teenager. I remember my Dad sawing the bottom of the drain pipe that came from the bath (we didn’t have a shower) and putting a barrel underneath so he could water the plants.

I was 5. My main memory was hoards of stinging ladybirds on the school playing fields.

I was 9 and we moved house too. The day was blazing hot. My parents just about melted! We had a garden for the first time, my sister was 14 and discovered sunbathing, she was as brown as a berry.

My parents are still living in the same house, 50yrs!

I was nine and I remember it being hot but nothing like it is these days.

I was nine. I was super suntanned and the water from the tap was as brown as my skin!

I took my O levels that summer!

After that we went up to the Lake District for a week, which was lovely and green, and as we drove back down south everywhere was so parched the countryside looked like a desert. The lawn in our garden was just baked mud with little bits of straw scattered around on it.

In all the dry summers we have had since I have never seen it as brown and parched as it was that year

I was coming up to 13 that summer and I remember it well. I recall sitting in stiflingly hot class rooms throughout June and half of July until we broke up for the summer holidays. I spent practically every day of the holiday out and about on my bike with my best friend. I don't recall being overly affected by the heat. One thing I also don't remember is the plague of ladybirds. Everything I read about that summer mentions them but I I don't recall seeing any!

It's interesting, we didn't drink much water, I'm sure if you suggested buying a bottle of water people would have laughed.

I’ve just finished the Maggie O’Farrell book Instructions for a Heatwave, so the summer of ‘76 has been on my mind. I was 15, which seems to me now was a brilliant age to experience it. I remember the summer term at school, spending the lunch hour with friends lazing on the school field; our blouses rolled up & trying to get a tan. I failed miserably. Since then I’ve gone for the “pale & interesting” look instead. I remember our Headmistress painstakingly explaining how, if you tied your school jumper round your waist, it just meant you had double the thickness of the fabric over your bottom, so it wasn’t any cooler & therefore not to do it. I don’t think any of us bothered to take our school jumpers to school after the spring half term anyway. I’m still friends with the boy I was going out with. We’d go to outdoor swimming pools, or swim in the River Thames and go for moonlit strolls down the towpath. A mutual friend had a small rowing boat & a lake at the end of her garden. I learnt to row there that summer. I did an exchange with my German pen friend - it actually rained in Germany that July! We took my pen friend on visits to Cliveden & Windsor Castle. I was the scorer for one of the local cricket teams and noticed the pitches getting dryer and browner. By the end of the season (late September) the outfields were so fast many fours were hit. What a blissful summer that was!

I was taking O levels and the exam room was so hot my pen slipped out of my hand due to sweat. And ended very brown as suntan lotion wasn’t much used then.

If it reaches the 38c that is predicted for Wednesday and Thursday, then it will be considerably hotter than it reached in 1976, it never reached 38c in the 70s, 80s or 90s.

In fact the first time it ever reached 38c was 10th August 2003. It has reached/exceeded that three times since.

1976 was unusual in that it was sustained heat, over a long period, which affected infrastructure. I was 6 but remember my mum filling the bath with cold water, due to water shortages.

This red warning is not for a heatwave per se, it is because it is unusually high, extreme heat, which has different challenges to 1976, but they do not compare really.

Denis Howell was the Minister For Drought in 1976, he hadn't had the job very long before it finally started to rain.
My summer that year was spent on the beach. There was a glut of tomatoes, people couldn't give them away.

I was 12 and swam in Derwentwater lake every day as opposed to the walks that my parents loved on the annual two weeks in the Lakes. I remember waking up to blue skies every day and going back to school in September so tanned with streaked hair. I’m sure that was the summer I was allowed to stay up to watch Rich Man, Poor Man! Good times.

I seemed to live in an inflatable paddling pool. I had an inflatable dolphin that kept getting punctured so it had black insulating tape all over it. Our lawn was yellow.

Little sis & I were at primary school. We were very brown, I earned the nickname squaw. I spent the whole summer in shorts and tshirts.

The water was turned off and there was a standpipe in the street which was turned on in the evening, and all the mums queued up
When we got in from school, we took our seaside buckets, went to the local brook, and went back & forth, carrying water to fill big black buckets by the back door. This was used to wash with and to flush the loos.

I remember it. It was literally really hot for weeks and weeks. And then one night it rained. We were so pleased to see it that my friends and I danced outside in it.