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My son was 5 years old in 1976 He had always been fair, but that summer his hair bleached by the sun, was almost white. His cousin, not wanting to play, said " Boys with white hair can't play".This expression is often remembered when we all get together.

I was 10, it was the school holidays, I expect I was being annoying to my mother.

I was only 5 years old my old loving parents were only young loving beautiful kids themself . They took my brother and I to Devon . We live in the northeast so there was a huge contrast in the weather. So we spent a few weeks of the school holidays travelling around devon . Living each day playing on the beach and in the sea. It was amazing. My DF had just worked 6 months in Algiers so he didn't find the weather hot.but for my DB and I itmeant many ice creams clotted cream and jam scones in the sweltering heat. It was one of the best times of ourlives. Now my parents healths are both frail I often look back to those wonderful times of laughter and youth and careless days.

A long glorious holiday when I refused to wear shoes, much to my mother's annoyance, the first and only time I ever got truly sunburnt (I quickly learnt not to fall asleep in the sun) and all the excitement of going around with my first boyfriend, a time of wonderful memories

I was still in primary school and our school had a tree in the grounds. The classes took it in turns to do a lesson outside, in the shade of that tree.

I was 12 and remember jumping through the garden sprinkler for ages - (we didn't have standpipes where we were). Going on holiday to Swansea and it being so very hot. When returning to school in September we were all in summer dresses - the only time I ever remember this happening, in fact, I don't think I have ever worn a summer dress since! Freezing the lemon/water drink for school the night before so that it was still half frozen and cool when it came to drinking it the next day. (They must have done a roaring trade on school dresses that year.....)

Fascinating how so many of us have the same memories. My DS was born December 1975 but that was another hot summer. We moved into a new build house in the summer of 1976. The garden was full of builders rubble so nowhere nice to sit and impossible to do anything about because of the heat. The front garden had turf laid but of course that died from lack of water. The new plaster in the house cracked as well!. My son hated the heat and was a very grizzly baby in the afternoons so I resorted to pushing him in his pram just to sooth him to sleep. He did own very few clothes at that time. Just T-shirts and nappies. When the rain came, the first thing I had to buy was a rain-cover for the buggy. Never needed it till then.
Usually I love hot weather. Just wish it had arrived a year later.

First year in teaching. Would have been all hot and bothered if it hadn't for the glorious shade of some wonderful oaks in our school grounds. I certainly developed my outdoor teaching voice.
Got married against a muted backdrop of scorched, brown grass. Not quite the lush garden greenery I would have liked, but hey, the joyous photos showed we probably hadn't even noticed.

I was married in early 1976 and remember to heatwave well. We lived in a flat with no garden and one evening to get some air ( which was stagnant at the time) we went out for a drive with some friends. The air through the open car windows was balmy but more refreshing than sitting indoors. There was suddenly a squeal of tyres on the tarmac and an almighty crash - about four cars in front of us a motorcycle and its rider was thrown into the air and came to rest on the pavement near our car. The cars in front of us continued on but we stopped. Two weeks before I had attended and passed my first aid certificate so felt inclined to help. We had no mobile phones in the 1970's so my husband ran to can the police and ambulance and I ran to the injured motorcyclist. He had broken a leg and was unconscious so I put him in the recovery position ensuring his airway was clear and he was breathing. I sat on the pavement with him for about 10 minutes, checking his breaking at intervals as he was bleeding from his mouth. It was all quite scary at the time and I was relieved when the professionals arrived and took over. I told them what had happened and what treatment I had given and we got back into our car and drove home. I was in shock that night, I was only 20 and it was a horrific situation by the roadside.
A week later my friend told me I was mentioned in the local newspaper as an anonymous but 'brave young lady with a cool head and the knowledge required to have saved the young motorcyclist's life.'
I never contacted the paper although they did request I did but I was just so happy to have been in the right place at the right time and was able to help. I still get flashbacks seeing the motorcycle flying through the air and the young man lying on the pavement, 40 years later.

I was doing A levels that summer. It was too hot to revise! I remember taking bottles of water into exams. I couldn't work in the garden and just shut myself in my bedroom!

All I remember about that year was walking to and from school in the scorching hot sun!

'76 was the year son was born. I can remember many days sitting in the garden under a shade. My beautiful pram with a shade cover and a net for sleep time. Bought the small paddling pool, son and me SAT in it, he loved playing with all the toys ............ bowls, colander, sieve, cups. It was so cooling. HAPPY DAYS

1976 was a very memorable year for me. I came down to London to do my Sick children's training at Great Ormond street hospital. Lovely memories of being allowed to take the long term children out to the park. The wards were unbearably hot and the stiff starched uniforms didn't help!

I worked in a Hospital in Scotland as a Staff Nurse, and as the Ward was a 'Florence Nightingale' style, we opened the french doors and wheeled most of the patients outside, still in their beds, they loved it!

Oh yes, only too well.. I was pregnant with my first daughter (who recently celebrated her 40th) and was on holiday with my husband and another couple. We went for a week long holiday on the Fens on a riverboat (which was exotic at the time) and the water dried up in so many places that we were restricted as to your destinations! Mind you, that was the least of my worries as I was puffing, blowing and sweating like a pig..! A very memorable year.. and we named her Lauren! xx

I remember it well as I had a broken leg that was hot, sweaty and itchy and couldn't go swimming or to the beach with the rest of the family and sat in a hot hotel room.

Endless Summer days, water shortages & studying & taking my O Levels.

Ah the long hot summer of '76! Getting up at 5:30 every morning to help out in my family's paper shop, then making love in the sand dunes in the afternoons with my first 'serious' boyfriend.

I was between babies, D2 was born 1975 and DS in 1977 so not actually pregnant at the time. Just had lots of fun keeping 2 under 3's happy along with a large, hairy dog and a very hardworking husband. Although I loved actually being preggie I was grateful NOT to be so that year.

I was expecting our second baby and on August 2nd my parents-in-law came to visit us from Chester. We walked around a park in Nottingham and everything in it appeared to be dead. The grass was brown, the leaves on the trees were withered and already falling off. When they went home my husband had a migraine with stress so we went to bed early. Just as I lay down my waters broke so we went to the nursing home where our lovely son was born. He weighed 10 pounds and it had been difficult to be pregnant in the heat. I usually love the hot weather but that is the only time I have woken up and cried to see the sunshine in through the curtains!

The heatwave started just as DS was born -the garden was too baking hot to put him outside in the pram.

After a few weeks with no rain we were threatened with having the water cut off and they put standpipes along the road. Of course, in those days there were no disposable nappies so I bought a galvanised bucket ready to boil the nappies.

Luckily it started raining just before they switched off the water so the bucket never got used.

I remember that we had a lot of grasshoppers and some used to hop into the kitchen!

I was 10 and one morning before school got into a scuffle with a classmate. He pushed me into the coat pegs and I hurt my arm but was too scared to tell anyone in case I got into trouble for fighting. I went through the whole day at school then rang my mom at work when I got home and told her I'd tripped over the rug in my bedroom. One hospital visit later and it turned out I'd broken it. Spent the entire summer plastered up and unable to join in with the fun. I only told my mom the truth about ten years ago, she said she always suspected I'd been up to no good!

Living in Kent I remember day after day of 30 degrees heat and I remember the hazy sunshine as we walked to town early to avoid the heat. The weather was too hot for the children to do much so were contained in the paddling pool. The grass was dead and we set up a hose pipe out of the window from the bath to try and keep the veges alive. we closed our curtains to keep out the heat. My husband, neighbours and I slept on our sunbeds in the garden one night as it was so hot indoors, drinking wine and laughing till the early hours. I loved it and it must have suited me as I became pregnant with my daughter who arrived in time for the glorious summer of '77.

The end of my early marriage and the beginning of a brief but beautiful affair with a Kenyan Manchester University student. Going to visit him in his flat in Longsight and blissful afternoons in Victoria Park. I was a young teacher and had 6 weeks of non stop sun and fun.

My Post Office Telephones van (it was before the invention of BT) was a bright yellow and when we returned to base at the end of the day it was always covered in hundreds of ladybirds.