to ask for your reminiscences of summer 1976?

[kitnkaboodle]

... if you're old enough! An earlier thread about air conditioning (and this month's weather) has led me to think about that year.

I was 12 and can personally remember (in the Midlands) ALL the grass being dry and brown, not flushing the toilet and being told off by my aunt for running a tap unnecessarily. It wasn't desperately hot, was it? Just very sunny and dry for week after week. I remember my mum saying it started in (..July?) and carried on until October, when storms broke it. She said that you could plan ahead what to wear or do, as you knew it was just going to be bright blue skies when you opened the curtains each morning.

Not sure how actually accurate all that is!

The cricket - the Windies thrashing England and being bitterly disappointed that it bloody rained on the Saturday of the Lords Test when we had tickets.

We had a new table-tennis table on the lawn, which already looked like the Gobi Desert.

Repeated playing reduced the remaining dried grass into patches of brown dust. Poor Pater had to re-seed the whole area when the drought was over. I recall him sitting with a tennis racquet; waiting to swat away any bird life foolish enough to attempt stealing of grass seed.

There was mention in the local press of stand pipes - for when water became so scarce that domestic mains had to be cut off periodically. I don't think that ever happened in the end though.

yes I was 6 - I have strong memories of being in the paddling pool in the yard all day long - and it being very hot

I remember bathing all together and being very brown

we had siestas in the afternoon because it was so hot - my mums idea

and I remember walking to school on crunchy layers of ladybirds!

I was married that year. It was June. It rained and rained! All day! Then it didn't rain again for months! Fond memories...

Was 11
Watching Wimbledon on the TV outside at school . Mrs parkin loved tennis.
In summer in sea every day as we lived near the sea. There was massive jelly fish in sea as well.
My uncles lived nearer the sea than us so we were there every day.
We had ski yogurt lots as one uncle like and other did not so we bought as treat for him.
We fish and chips a lot too as we went past the chippy on way home.

It was the first summer I was old enough to have memories of - and I thought every summer would be just like it!

Our DF took us on a trip to the local reservoir. It was an expanse of cracked dry mud with a puddle in the middle.
DB cultivating his afro and slathering himself with Ambre Solaire to get a tan (and he did!) so he could go back to his posh school in September and shock everybody. And he did. 37 years later I met someone who'd been to his school "Oh,DB Major? The one with the HAIR."!
DM making ice lollies with orange squash and a toothpick.

NewLife4Me - it was Southampton v Manchester United in the 1976 FA Cup Final. I remember going to London for the first time ever that year with my dad. He spent all his money on the train tickets and entry to the Tower of London and could only afford 1 pasty for lunch which I fed to the pigeons!

I was three , my sister was born and I remember her outside in her brown pram . I ate pea pods , white turnips , raspberries and red currants grown by my daddy.

I was 13 in the summer of 1976 and lived in Hampshire.

I do remember some exceptionally hot days at school at the end of term and being told off by the staff for trying to wear less clothing than was deemed acceptable.

My father re-married and I went to his wedding. All the grass in the wedding photos is brown.

I vaguely remember the water shortage adverts - share a bath etc, but don't think it actually impacted on me and my family at all. Perhaps that was the year we got into showering instead of baths?

What I do remember, very clearly, is the first time it rained for weeks and weeks. It was probably early September. My Mum and I went outside and stood in the garden and let ourselves get soaked. It felt like an exciting event!

I remember we went camping in Poole, not a very pleasant experience. Also my dad telling our neighbour off for watering his garden in the dead of night when there was a hose pipe ban.

oh, how lovely

Abba, Dancing Queen at the school disco and my first kiss

frying eggs on the pavement

white dog poo

standpipes at the end of the street

tarmac melting on the roads

being a bridesmaid in the most horrendous green and brown crimplene trouser suit

school photographs with my sis that still sit on my mum's dressing table

playing rounders in the street with the grown ups

parties....the grown ups in our house, the kids in next door's and goat curry on the stove that seemed to feed five thousand

my dad smashing up his car because he couldn't fix it and all the neighbours out to watch on their doorsteps (erases that last one from my mind)

In 1976 Iwas 15 and my summer job was working in a chip shop, the heat was horrendous! But I earned enough for my first independent holiday so it was definitely worth it!

I was under 10, I vaguely remember a lorry and stand pipes to get water at the top of the street.

I also remember having a pink halter necked swimming costume and a glorious holiday in Saundersfoot, although the car over heated on the way there and frequent stops to cool it off

madamhooch - most definitely Saints in the Cup Final, I remember that very well. DH a massive Saints fan. DC1 was overdue. Fortunately, DD arrived the night before the match.

We were fortunate in living in a victorian house which wasn't too bad for heat, but going out was pretty much restricted to early morning or late afternoon. We were also lucky in not having major water restrictions. Even so, it was not a good time trying to cope with the weather and a baby who hadn't read the rule books.

When it did actually rain - early September, I think - DH and I went and stood in the garden and got wet.

Bath water being used to water the garden

Having a picnic on the common and the sandwiches of luncheon meat were all dry so we went and got ice creams

The paddling pool at he park always being empty

I was 4

It was my last summer at primary school.

I remember wearing a sundress to school - I'm not sure why, we had school uniform summer dresses, but I think they relaxed the uniform at the end of term because of the heat.

I remember the tarmac melting, and the threat of standpipes (we never had them though), and trying to water my dad's allotment without a hosepipe, and the tap was miles away!

Seems like a strangely charmed summer; the one summer that really was endlessly sunny and we could play out all holiday.

I was 22 and had come home to my parents' flat in London after several months in Israel. It was too hot to sleep at night and I remember getting up for a cold shower and going back to bed without drying myself, in an attempt to cool down.

The ladybirds.

Dennis Howell

Getting incredibly burned at Wimbledon

Bloody school insisting we wore tights and, even worse, hats and gloves for church. In that heat.

Seeing the drowned village at the bottom of the Ladybower Dam and the mud firm enough for people to walk on it.

The moors on fire, with the peat smouldering for months.

Terrible forest fires in France.

I remember being told to sit under the tree in the school playground by the dinner ladies. we were interested to dfind that the shaddow had moved by afternoon play.

remember reports of water bowser and cracked fields and depleted reservoirs on the tv.

I forgot about Wimbledon. I went with the school and queued for ages to try and get into centre court to see Bjorn Borg play.

It was women's semi finals and I saw Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Billy Jean King, Betty Stove. I also saw John Lloyd, but can't remember who else.

My siblings and I all had chickenpox at the same time. For weeks we ran about in knickers and a thick layer of calamine lotion and nothing else. We had the smallest paddling oil ever that we all squeezed into. Standpipes that we had to walk to with buckets several times a day.
Cheesecloth dresses and shirts and pudding bowl haircuts.

Our first summer in our new home (had got married the previous autumn) sweltering in the office despite some feeble air conditioning, they brought in additonal 'cooling' machines to which you had to add loads of ice. They were not effective.
We had a holiday in the south of France, drove down to Dover and got a cross channel ferry after finishing work in the City at around 5pm (the City kept civilised hours in those far-off days), driving through France overnight. Going around the Paris périphérique around midnight was still very hairy! France didn't seem any hotter than it was at home.

I mostly sat on a rug, wearing a hat. Best summer ever.

Bun, I think I got court 1 tickets. But I also remember being at the outside courts in the first week. And they ran out of ice lollies.