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!

Being aged 10 in London. School projects to make posters to help save water.

Going swimming with the school at the town leisure centre, and the coach driver leaving the doors open.

A load of London Sikhs gathering in Regents Park to pray for rain, and all my parents friends being impressed that it worked !

My Mum and Dad used to love Neil Diamond. We always had to sit and listen to one of his albums after Sunday Lunch!

Leo Sayer - I Feel Like Dancing

uk.search.yahoo.com/search?p=1976+music&fr=yset_ie_syc_oracle&type=orcl_hpset

Fanny (Be Tender with My Love) was a hit for the Bee Gees

I recognise far more hits from 1976 than I would from this year many on my playlists

Age 6 living in RAF Kenley and roaming free over the airfield and in the woods. There were stand pipes for water for a time.

I'd go out in the morning and come back at teatime, filthy and hungry. Somehow managed not to die of thirst or hunger being out of the house for hours.

Collected ladybirds in an old jam jar and then every morning I'd release them and collect some more.

The lake and the River Ver at Verulamium Park, St Albans, dried up. I was very pregnant and I used to go into Marks and Spencer in St Albans and stand under their airconditioning vent to cool down.
DC was born towards the end of August and we have a picture of us in early September wearing jumpers, so it must have come to a fairly abrupt end!

I went on holiday with my parents to Scotland, it was so hot that I was able to swim in Loch Earn and Loch Rannoch, the water was beautiful and cool.

I've never fancied swimming in a loch since!

Evans - without a doubt that was Smash Hits magazine. I thought it was weekly ...?

I was in utero too, born early November. My mum loved the heat. And now I do too. :)

I had a rather lovely dress and shorts set - the dress front was open from the bottom hem up to the waist to reveal the matching shorts IYSWIM.

I'm pretty sure my Gran had bought it in Spain and it was actually hot enough to wear it during our annual holiday in Scotland! I fact I came back from our annual trip/holiday to see relatives in Scotland with a fantastic tan.

I was 7. I spent the summer in a pair of red nylon knickers. I have absolutely no recollection of suncream though.

I remember all the ladybirds. I remember swarms of greenfly too but that might have been a later year.

I remember picking at the melted tar on the roads with lolly sticks.

I was 14/15. We had a narrowboat holiday and the water level in the canals was quite low. Our boat had an 18" draft where most boats were deeper so we didn't go aground too often.

Others have mentioned the ladybirds. I remember them too. One of the tents we had in the Guides was yellow and it attracted them. When it was time to strike camp we brushed off as many as possible but still, the next time we pitched it loads of dead ladybirds fell out

NorbertDentressangle

I had a similar outfit but instead of a dress it was a long skirt and cropped top. I love, love, loved that outfit and was gutted when I outgrew it. Mum made it for me and one for my sister is different fabric.

I was 9. I holidayed with my cousins and was allowed on the back of the eldest cousins motorbike and he drove me up and down the streets (no helmet as far as I remember) to cool us down

Yep mum made my clothes too. I was 11 and she made me a blue maxi dress. Lovely.

No sun cream, no bike helmets, no boundaries with a chopper byke anyway as you had 10p in your pocket for sweets and you had the world at your feet.

We cycled from our house to the airport once, 15 miles. Went at 9 and got back for tea to avoid the 'being late' smack.

Bloody fantastic summer and childhood. No hovering adults.

I was 17 and in the Lower Sixth. We spent our long lunchtimes sunbathing and using chicken skin as sun lotion. We smelt lovely for afternoon lessons.

A friend and I were dog sitting her aunt's blind pooch. I burnt my fingers on steam from the kettle and it was so hot in the sun that I could not let the rays touch my burned fingers without being in agony.

I am sure it started in April and went through to September.

It is the summer that acts as a benchmark for what summers should be. I have been bitterly disappointed ever since.

But I remain hopeful.

Oddly I can't remember much about 1976 apart from getting heatstroke. 1977 sticks out much more in my mind.

I remember going into the local newsagent and the whole display shelf for chocolate bars was empty - they couldn't stock them as they just melted.

I think it started in April too, as I was convalescing in May and it was so hot. I'd been in hospital with meningitis and mumps for a few days and then wasn't allowed out in the lovely weather until June.

I remember the smell of melting, dripping creosote on the fences and telegraph/telephone posts (not sure what they were actually) and the mirages which appeared in the bumps in the road in the shimmering heat haze. The tarmac was tacky when we tried to walk on it and dogs left prints of their claws.

The circus came to town and my mum decided to take me and my baby brother. We set out with my brother in a pushchair and I held on tightly to her hand. Mum decided to treat us to icecreams. As we tried to eat them a cloud of ladybirds swarmed over us and many met a premature end in the icecreams. So many flew on to us that both me and mum started to worry about my brother because they were getting in his face. I remember the worry but not what my mum did next. I think we had to abandon our treats and take cover although I'm pretty sure we did get to see the circus. My one circus memory relates to a slightly later event when an elephant made a half hearted effort at charging the audience and coming straight at us but I don't think that happened in 76.

I remember the snow in June, weird.

The previous summer was also hot, but not quite the same scale. Certainly far hotter than these days.

I was 12, and remember being at the open air swimming pool in Newbury and there were loads and loads of dead ladybirds floating in it.

I was 4. I learnt to swim in an outdoor pool.

I was 10.We had just moved into the house my parents are now preparing to leave. I learned that I could dowse that summer - dad farmed me out to various people to find hidden underground streams and leaking pipes in their gardens.

Actually that was 75! I remember 76 - clouds of ladybirds! Bitten by them when we tried to play tennis at school.

I was 6. I remember the ladybirds all over my Mams washing on the line. There was a full line of white terry nappies drying, covered in them.
I'll always remember that sight!