Is the heatwave hotter than the summer of 1976?

I meant complaining not complying ?

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.

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 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!

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.

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.

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.

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 !

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.

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 :-)

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.

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.

Coolgran65

My son was born on early June of 1976. I remember pushing the Silver Cross to the baby clinic to have him weighed. It was so hot I dressed him in only nappy, pants and little vest. Putting the hood slightly up to shade from the sun. And a sunshade at the other side
When I arrived all the babies were beautifully dressed and I felt awful.
However when nurse took my son to weigh him she held him up and called out ….Ladies….this is how you dress a baby in hot weather. I was beaming.

Coolgran that's what my DS wore too most of the time. Next door neighbour did buy him two cotton romper suits which were very cool so he wore those when we wanted to be posh

The Silver Cross prams with a white broderie Anglaise canopy lined with green sun shade material were lovely.

1976 , remember it well . Expecting first child , talk of standpipes! I was not looking forward to washing terry nappies with standpipes the order of the day!! Fortunately by the time she was born - November, the standpipes were a thing of the past. I have never coped too well in the heat so being pregnant in the summer of 76 was not comfortable.

In the office where I was working during that summer was a prefab. HR were very worried and kept bringing jugs of water for us to drink.
The heat didn’t bother me at all and we all wore office clothes even tights which people don’t seem to do today.

Casdon

I’d say no, I’m sure the temperatures were in the 30s for ages then, and that it didn’t rain for months. We are only in it less than a week this time so far.

1976 was a prolonged heatwave with temperatures in the high 70s and 80s most days. I remember we went on holiday during the school holiday at the end of May and the heatwave started the following week. The heat carried on with absolutely no rain until well into September because I started a job at the beginning of September and it was still hot. It rained for the first time a few days into September. This one seems worse to me because I was only 32 in the 1976 heatwave and I am nearly 78 in this one and my ageing body can’t deal with extremes of temperature. I don’t think I could deal with another summer like 1976.

I am now rereading Maggie O'Farrell's novel, Instructions for a Heatwave, a family story set in London during the summer of 1976.

Enjoyable summer reading ?

I am not sure but I adored the heat then and find it overwhelming now. On holiday I have been in hotter climes but the breeze on the ship made it seem much less extreme.

Remember the plague of ladybirds?

We got grasshoppers indoors!

Hellogirl1

I`ve mentioned this before, in the hope that someone else might have seen it, but never any takers. We went down to S.Devon in September 1976. As we were driving through a little Devon village, we saw what should have been a picturesque cottage painted all black, and in big white letters was a message saying that the house had been painted thus as a punishment for the occupiers for wasting water. I think the name of the village began with an M. Then as I said in an earlier post, the rain came at lunchtime on the Thursday, we were sitting on the beach at Hope Cove.

We lived near there, I don't remember that! Perhaps I didn't get out much that summer!

Modbury was where I bought my first cotton bag - it was the first town in the UK t become plastic bag free.

I am sure it was hotter in 76. I too was pregnant and gave birth at the beginning of August. I was a sweaty blob.

Remember the plague of ladybirds?

I finished my GCSE's early June 1976 and had the best long holiday. I was nearly 17 and spent my days at the beach and out on dates on the back of motorbikes, funfairs etc. It was the best Summer. I started my first job in October which brought me back to earth with a bump! Think my mother was happier though.

I remember now, the village was Modbury, or Little Modbury.

I`ve mentioned this before, in the hope that someone else might have seen it, but never any takers. We went down to S.Devon in September 1976. As we were driving through a little Devon village, we saw what should have been a picturesque cottage painted all black, and in big white letters was a message saying that the house had been painted thus as a punishment for the occupiers for wasting water. I think the name of the village began with an M. Then as I said in an earlier post, the rain came at lunchtime on the Thursday, we were sitting on the beach at Hope Cove.

I worked in the Central Forecasting Office at the Met office in Bracknell in 1976 and it was incredible . Every day that went by another record was broken somewhere around the country .
Plotting the weather charts was dead easy - the same all over the country .