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!

Don't remember it personally as I was about 10 months but there are photos of that summer. Nearly all of them show me on the lawn wearing only a nappy and sometimes not even that :)

it was so HOT. i remember walking home from school, just under 3 miles and raiding the fridge and drinking loads of cold milk

Mum was pregnant with me all through the summer i was born Septmeber 9th and was 2 foot long when born.

She always liked to tell me how painful it was being so pregnant with such a large baby is the heat
She said it rained a few days after i was born, typical of me!!

I remember not being able to run the cold tap to get a cold drink but having tepid water... should have used the fridge really.

I was 11, turned 12 later that year. I spent two weeks of the long, hot summer in the fever hospital with meningitis and a friend sent me two boxes of Beano comics to amuse myself in my isolated room. There was no tv or radio. The place was deathly quiet. A family friend sent me 'Anne of Green Gables' and an edition of very funny Patrick Campbell (from Call My Bluff) articles as well as a Chinese Chequers game. I was moved to a ward for my last four days and finally met a fellow patient, a girl my age from the northside of Dublin whose name and address I can still remember, weirdly enough. The ward had an old fashioned bath chair with wheels that must have dated from the Edwardian era and we pushed each other around in it, had a lovely time spinning in it and tipping it back, and then used our meal tray/trollies to push off from the walls with our feet and 'surf'.

We went away for a caravan holiday a few weeks after I was sprung from the hospital and had a fantastic time, coming and going from a little known beach on the south coast of Ireland, climbing the cliffs. Mum fried fresh mackerel for breakfast outside the caravan every morning on a kosangas burner and all the cats from the local tiny village came looking for fish heads and guts. We brought new potatoes from the garden at home. At night we played Whist and went for walks on the rocky headlands, and fished. My freckles all joined together and I finally looked tanned. During the holiday one of my uncles (an IL) died and we went to his funeral -- the fields of wheat along the way were incredibly golden and the church doors were all left open.

We came home after our two weeks to find the grass in the garden all scorched and brown and my two exceptionally tanned sisters were mistaken for Spanish students.

I think I remember a lot of flying ants in the garden, which I tried to squash (I was little). But that may have been the summer of 1977 as they arrived just before a big rainstorm.

Oh, it was scorchio! Wasn't it the year The Sun coined that long-lasting phrase? I was 20 and spent the entire summer sailing. Timing was an accident, but couldn't have worked out better :) I got massive, serious sunburn though, for the first and last time ever. Am now seeing the damage it did to my skin; it's quite interesting as souvenirs go.

Out at sea, the sky was full of shooting stars - every single night - and there was phosphorescence in our wake. Truly magical - the pain of salt water on weeping blisters is forgotten, but those sparkling nights stay clear in my memory

It was very hot and dry for weeks on end. I remember my months-old baby crawling in the garden and trying to keep him on the rug because the dried- up spikes of grass pierced his knees.
I also remember ironing outside in my bikini, and burning my stomach and fore-arms from the reflective ironing-board cover.

I spent most of the summer in Monmouth with my Nan. My Aunt was a teacher at the Haberdasher school so we spent all summer in the pool. Unfortunately the Wye was very low and thete were lots of dead fish. I was nearly 14 at the time

I could only hear faint sounds through the embryonic sack at that point

I was at uni in the south - it did not rain from May to the end of September.

There were water restrictions from 7.00.a.m.to.10.00.p.m., i.e. no water at all.

At the same time I could see the interCity trains being cleaned with hose so they would look good going to London.

It never felt hot, though. Just rather nice.

kitnkaboodle - nope, I remember Smash Hits too, it was a glossier magazine.

I've found some listings for "Words" on E-bay - this one is from 1975. It measured around 5in x 9in, printed on rougher paper, like newspaper, but thicker.
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Words-record-song-book/191645240858?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D32958%26meid%3D50a140d9d525422d9c8c251f39696ce2%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D261997590202

I was born. It was pretty hot I think.

Sitting on the step in the shade eating Haunted House lollies with my brother.

Going to Longleat on a school trip and the chocolate bars melting to liquid in the picnic bag.

I was 6.

What brilliant memories you all have. I was 17 and it was the happiest time of my life in the sense of being the most carefree. I was completely besotted by a very gorgeous looking boy the same age. I remember meeting up with him at an agricultural show and we walked around in the August sunshine. I'd passed my Highers and didn't to worry about sixth year. In the end he treated me horribly and I cried for years about it (why?) He married someone else and sadly died 13 years later.
So many people from that golden time have gone.
Loved Kiki Dee and The Electric LIght Orchestra. The 'boy' played 'New World Record' in his car when we went out for the night.
Bittersweet

The film Jaws was still in everyone's minds and some joker put "danger, no swimming sharks" signs all along our local beach. It was so hot, we regularly went swimming late in the evening - we knew there weren't any sharks, but it was still scary!!!

Southampton beat Man Utd in the FA Cup Final. It was awful!

A summer of American Soul music, ladybirds, and heat.

Oh yes!

Life being calmer as my father finally moved out
Going off on the bus to the Lido with friends.
Guide camp in Wales
Going ice skating (to Dancing Queen) with a friend a lot
Ladybirds
Turning 12 as I started Secondary school

Hey bruffin, we must be practically the same age.

I was brought up in a seaside town. I was 13 in '76 so spent the entire school holiday on the beach with pretty much every other teen in the town . It was brill.

oh for the 1970's

Yes Mintyy, birthday next month on that notorious day

I was 17, and went away camping with my BF, (now DH) to Cornwall. First holiday on my own without mum, being all grown up! It was sooo hot and dry, there was water only for a couple of hours in the morning at the camp site, so we used to go to the local pub to use the loos in the evening as the campsite ones were so revolting after a long hot day with no water. Ladybirds everywhere and petrol 76 pence a gallon!

I was 13. Went on holls to North Yorkshire. It was lovely. Sun every day, playing in the haystacks with my lovely dog and brother.

Got to wear own clothes at school as uniform too hot. Wore big flares and a vest top with an anchor on it.

On the beach every night after school. Just starting to be interested in boys.......

Happy days.