Is the heatwave hotter than the summer of 1976?

No, I remember the temperatures being consistently over 30c and they went on for much longer, relentlessly.
I was pregnant and had my son late July. It was unbearably hot at times.

My daughter was a baby in 1976 and it was continually hot and dry. We moved house in November 1975 and I had not even needed to unpack my umbrella throughout 1976 even though I walked everywhere. It didn't rain even in the winter .... at least not in Surrey where I lived. There was a shortage of water. We were being advised to "shower with a friend",
and people were queueing with containers to get water from standpipes in the street.

However, I don't remember it being so hot at night then, but maybe I was just exhausted as a young mum and could sleep through anything.

In a word....no. As some other posters have said, I too was pregnant with my daughter - born in June. I was in hospital for over a month...it was unbearable. The 'drought/heatwave' started at Easter and went on till September. I was farming then and we had to have fire tenders come up to supply water to the farm for the stock. This was in Hampshire...... I am now in Wales, not sure it was as bad in Wales...we have a reputation for being rather 'wet' in west Wales :-)

I remember it quite well i went away with my husband and we got burnt and had prickly heat it was not nice. But we had a nice holiday.

I was expecting my daughter, she was born in August. I was so uncomfortable and hot,when we did have a little shower of rain l went outside and stood in it. Yes,the heat continued for weeks it was relentless then in September it broke and didn't stop raining for ages . Be careful what you wish for !

lemongrove

tanith

I was very pregnant with my son during that heatwave he was born the middle of July, and trust me it went on for weeks I spent many hours just sat in the shower to try to keep cool even after he was born it was still very hot and stormy. It’s only been a few days ?

I was pregnant that year too, the heat was awful.We had stand pipes fitted to get water, further up the road and gardens looked like deserts.

Me too. I spent the last few weeks of my pregnancy with the curtains drawn trying to keep out the heat. It did not rain from at least the beginning of July until my daughter arrived. The rain finally came on the night of her birth on 26th September. When I was taken up to the ward on the top floor the constant heat had cracked the flat roof and there were buckets everywhere catching the leaks! Standpipes had been set up 1/2 mile from my house but at least I did not need to use them.

Goodness, this thread has brought it all back to me! I had a hang-gliding accident in May of that year and broke my arm and leg, so was in plaster through the long weeks of the heatwave. We lived in a London flat with no garden and I spent many days sunbathing in the local park. It was a funny look, bikini and plastered arm and leg.

I was pregnant with twins in 1976 and remember it well.
I think it started around May & went on until September. I wasn’t ‘allowed’ to go to the football cup final at Wembley as the men in my life thought it too hot & it would be ‘dangerous’ for me. I recall maggots in the dustbin that freaked me out & I was crying on the phone to my husband to come home & sort them out! I clearly was not in my right mind! My boys were born August 25th & I was stuck in hospital until mid September, begging them to let me go home, it was so so hot in there! This heatwave has only be going for a week, so cannot really compare, today here in the south we have a welcome breeze with the prospect of it all getting cooler over the next seven days makes it bearable. Certainly wouldn’t like it to be prolonged as 1976 was.

I remember 1976 well, I was in the Fire Service then and never had to work so hard in my life! I lost 2 stones over that summer!

No. Plus the Summer of 76 lasted more than a week. Am gutted it seems to have come to an end today. I love it hot. Never moan it's 'too hot' and have been sleeping perfectly well.

I can remember the summer of 76 it was unbearable. I was quite young but remember having a standpipe for water in our street and having to go and collect the water for cooking and washing. I can also remember standing in the front garden watching an electrical storm, no rain but the lightning and noise was incredible. I don’t think it’s hotter now but I’m older and suffer from ill health so i feel like a boil in the bag chicken lol. I have red brick built house and they absorb the heat to the point you cannot touch them and radiates throughout the house?I’m not complying though, just wish I had a pool to cool off in.

I meant complaining not complying ?

Grannyboots - why on earth would you wear tights in Summer????

The summer of '76 was a lot hotter and went on for a lot longer. I remember, living in Dorset at the time, we had standpipes where we needed to fetch our water. It seemed to be months before we had any rain

I don’t think so. I remember the tarmac on the roads melting in 76 and it went on for about three months.

It went on for weeks. I was pregnant and had HG and couldn’t go out in it at all as I immediately threw up. I had to sit by the back door and watch my two year old play in the garden. The best summer we’ve ever had and I missed it!

I don’t think it’s hotter. I had a 3 month old baby in the heatwave in 1976 and we just drew the curtains and went to bed in the afternoons. Too hot to be out and it went on for ages!

That summer I was expecting my daughter. The heat was very intense. She was born on 9th September. There were storms that night and no more good weather after that!

The thing with 1976 was that it had been a very dry spring, so water levels were low to begin with - hence the serious water shortages. It was the year I got married too, and after our wedding in Wiltshire we drove up to Liverpool where we were to live. All the farmers fields, which should have been full of cereals and crops were turned to brown dusty dirt bowls.
This was also the early introduction to duvets, which were sold as being able to keep you warm in winter and cool in summer. Who were they kidding? We had been given a 15tog one as a wedding present. Cool, cosy nights? Not a chance.
Prior to our wedding I was teaching textiles in a 1960s designed secondary school. One wall was completely windows, and by the start of lessons at 9.30 the temperature was already in the 80s. Lessons were carried out, sat on corridor floors out of the sun. Aaah! I remember it well

I lived in Berkshire at the time and remembered the temperature in the 90s, but is it just that Harrogate is a cooler area, but we haven't gone over 86 degree

My dd was a few months old and it was hotter fir much longer than the few days we have had. It went in fir weeks /months, every day. I stayed home inside with curtains drawn, unless I had to get water from the standpipe.
The summer before when I was Pregnant was similarly hot, I was working and found it almost impossible to deal with.

I gave birth to my daughter on 3rd June and it was already hot then. She had a heat rash in hospital and was shown to the other mums so that they would recognise it if their baby got it.
It was too hot all summer for a young baby. I used to feed her around 4am then put her outside, under our bedroom window at the back of the house, in her big Silver Cross pram with an insect net and a cat net over it until 9am when I had to bring her inside as it was getting too warm outside. I put the pram next to the dining room table with a fan on the table to help keep her cool. It was so hot that I had to put a nappy between us while I fed her or we would be stuck together! It was really hot all summer (2 evening thunderstorms lasting about half an hour each in the middle of summer then straight back to heat. The road steamed as it dried!) This heat lasted until a week or 10 days into September.
Truly a summer to remember!
We slept downstairs as it was too hot upstairs. My friends put their makeup in the fridge to keep it cool. One lady put her knickers in a bag in her freezer to get a few minutes of bliss in the morning. The government was encouraging people to shower with a friend to preserve water. In some parts of the country there were standpipes for water as none was coming out of the tap!

I remember the summer of 1976 only too well. I suspect as people say it was longer and prolonged drought but now the weather is all over the place and the odd day has been far too hot. In 1976 my grandmother died in Suffolk and I had the job or sorting out funeral and getting her very neglected house on the market , while also starting my first teaching job in Devon with standpipes and restricted water usage!
But this week I deserve sympathy as I was sat inside as nowhere outside was cool enough when our gasman came round to check the boiler(long story but we think the meter is faulty and needed to check boiler not causing the overuse of gas problem) and to check it he put every radiator in the house on high for 10 minutes and I had to go room to room to ensure the radiators were working properly.YES THEY WERE and boiler fine . But house took hours to cool down.

I don't think so, I was pregnant with my second child and it was unbearable! It went on for weeks and weeks too, and we had to use standpipes ,the water was turned off at the mains during the day where I was living at the time, not ideal when you had a toddler who was still in terry nappies!

No, 1976 was a whole summer of high temperatures right i to September. I remember getting a very dark tan (you did that then!) and it seemed to go on forever.