Is the heatwave hotter than the summer of 1976?

I had a one year old and a five year old. I remember one horrid hot day when I was stranded with pushchair in city no transport or shade. But then also wild camping as s family in the Forest of Bowland (witches country) for two weeks where it rained. Found out after it was the only place it had! Unbelievable then back to the hot city.
I am very worried now about how my grandchildren are coping but I don’t remember mine having any problems then….

Didn't we have a bit of a heatwave a couple of years ago i remember they fitted me a new boiler/pipes system and i stayed (mostly) out in garden to get away a bit from the banging & clattering they were doing- and i got nice golden legs for a change(wore lots of sunscreen though)?☀️

Its strange, on here, ive noticed that the rain broke the heatwave but in different places at very different times- some had it august, or it lasted in some places right up to September or even as far as october!??

we were living in Ringwood then and everywhere tinder dry - worried about leaving the house for too long. a nice memory - seeing glow worms at night in the garden.

I remember it well. I was lucky to be working in a building with air con but oh the misery of going home each day to a stuffy top floor flat - no balcony, no garden and certainly no shower. What I remember most of all was being able to make plans to meet up with friends for a picnic or a walk in the countryside and know that the weather would be perfect.
( I also remember being in love with someone that I wasn’t meant to be in love with. But that’s another story. Sigh.)

I remember it well I had 9 month old twins and a 2.5 year old. I remember queuing at the standpipe for water and trying to keep the kids and I cool- some hope!! Ex H was his usual unhelpful, hands off self ! Couldn’t cope with this heat and babies/toddlers now though I’m much too old ?!

Just saw a quiz in Candis magazine, said there were 15 days in a row with temps of 32.2 degrees c. Where we, were, in North Devon, there was no rain from mid April to October.

In Israel it is an accepted fact that the heat in the summer becomes harder to bear the older you get. However, it does depend as well on your own constitution.

I have boundless energy the hotter it gets and eat like a horse in hot weather too, I have learnt I am in a minority here, but I just wish the whole summer would be like the last few weeks. Denmark had a very late, cold and wet spring, so we have really enjoyed the last six or eight weeks of high temperature and dry weather.

To those who find it trying: are you quite sure you are drinking sufficient water in the course of the day? If you are sweating a lot, then you are not drinking enough water.

It should be fairly easy to check the Met. Office statistics for 1976, and for the previous hot summer, which was if I remember correctly 1960.

My son was also born in July 1976, a week early. The heatwave went on for weeks and my baby wore only nappies for weeks. I also had a three year old daughter so couldn't rest much. Good job I was young and fit!

I was a teacher way back in ‘76, so we went camping to Scotland in August. It was the first time I had camped. We kept hearing about the heatwave in England, but it rained quite a lot where we were. After a few days of dodging the rain and millions of midges, we got a mini flood inside our tent and decided to come home early! I don’t think we ever went camping again!

I remember 1976 very well. I had a 18 month old and suddenly developed meningitis after mumps and I was so ill. In hospital I had to be barrier nursed as they suspected Lassa Fever, remember that scare? So I was in an oven of a room, on my own, no one came in. I had a lumbar puncture to diagnose meningitis so had to lay flat for days and days or I got the most horrendous headaches. My H and D weren’t allowed to visit, just look from the door. I was so miserable and upset. My parents came to look after my D but we lived in a very insulated little bungalow which was like an oven so they slept with both front and back doors open for some air!

After I was discharged, I suffered these headaches for weeks during all that heat. Eventually I’d be persuaded by my mum to quickly walk to the park, lay on a bench in the shade for a little while, then go home to lay down again. The only thing that helped was frozen face cloths on my forehead which immediately heated up and had to be swapped for another one! My poor mum!

I got pregnant and my son wasn’t a well child for a long time, suffered from poor teeth and illnesses presumably because I wasn’t 100% fit. He’s a strapping 6’2” 44 yr old now, I’ll never forget that year.

I too was pregnant with my son during that summer, he was born the following February. I had morning sickness, a 2 year old, no garden and from my memory it was absolutely unbearable. ?

I think we have had heatwaves in previous years. We just get more warnings now. We had a heatwave when we got married in 1983. And a few years back we had water shortages.

Here in Cardiff the river Taff dried up in the drought of 1976! We could walk along the river bed. We got married at the end of September on a very grey cloudy afternoon, then the rain started about 5pm and forgot to stop! ??

In the Sumer we decided to go camping in the Lake District wnere in the past we had experienced wet holidays. But it was no cooler. I remember walking up Cat Bells in sundress and sun hat and heavy walking boots. So we went over to the North East Coast where it was cooler and visit the Farne Islands.
When it finally rained we stood in the garden to enjoy it.

Our weather has always been unpredictable. Way back i remember it snowed on Derby day June 5th. When my children were small in the 40s and 50s summer temperatures were often in the 90s. We no longer get the cold winters. In London in the winter of 1946/7 the temperature remained below freezing for three months. I was pregnant and often fainted queueing for our meagre rations.

dorabelle100 I lived in Ringwood too, do you remember the fires all round and they had to evacuate St Leonard's Hospital

MawBe

Certainly as hot, if not hotter but, more important it went on for weeks. As I remember a Minister for Drought was appointed and that sorted it! ☔️☔️☔️☔️☔️

I read that the day Norman Fowler was officially appointed as Minister for Drought the heavens opened and it was one of the wettest autumns on record so that the parched reservoirs, which the doom and gloom mongers were telling us would take years to refill, were completely back to normal by Christmas. There was a sub-Saharan country where they had had a real drought, lasting for over three years. The leaders of the country thought that Norman Fowler was some sort of witch doctor and invited him to come to their country and work his magic there. As soon as he disembarked from the aeroplane, sure enough, the skies grew grey and the first drops of rain in three years fell. ?

Oh American Tan. They were the only ones we wore.

Musicgirl I think the Minister for Drought was Brummie MP Denis Howell. It started raining heavily almost as soon as he was appointed and thereafter was known as the Minister for Floods.

I would def say no! I was pregnant with my first baby and roasting all the time, we used to walk our dog at midnight when it was cooler - as did lots of other people. Maybe it’s different in different areas. We live on the coast and it’s certainly been hot here but not unbearable. Ps. I also lived in a seaside town in 76.

It probably seems hotter now if you are pre- or post-menopausal. I just seem to be a soggy mess all the time. Even within half and hour of having a cool shower. I vaguely remember sometimes having to collect water from standpipes in the street because of the shortage and the News programmes showing local reservoirs being almost empty.

1976 was hotter for much longer, all of July and August, no rain until early September, the rivers were drying up and fish dying.
There is no comparison

I don't remember it being quite so hot then, but it went on for weeks. We never had one drop of rain throughout the whole of the summer holidays, sun and clear blue skies every day dawn till dusk.
I believe it was September when I drove my husband the 25 miles to hospital for his operation and the countryside was unrecognisable.
Everything was brown, the grass, shrubs and trees, not a bit of green anywhere.
I never thought it would recover but when I drove him home two weeks later we'd had rain and I could see green shoots.

The 76 heatwave started on June 6th. We took the infant department on a trip to Chester Zoo for the day. Only the week before it had been snowing ! My boss said that I should have a word with my friend upstairs ( God) for better weather for the upcoming trip. When we got back and I had sun stroke he said that perhaps I’d overdone the prayer for good weather. It didn’t rain for weeks and weeks and the hose pipe ban came into use. Even though I had sunstroke, I think I coped better with the heat than I do now. I want some rain !

My youngest daughter was two-and-a-half and just beginning to use the toilet rather than the pot. I had to tell her not to flush and it took her another 3 years to automatically flush the toilet after use. And even now (at nearly 50) she says she has to (succesfully) remind herself to flush.

Amazing what things are subconsciously instilled in us at an early age. I wonder how the Covid-era babies will get on? (Not with flushing!) but with lack of socialisation, interaction, and exploration. Sorry, off topic now, I shall retire with a cold drink and wet neck towel to mull on this.