Remember the heatwave of 1976?

I was 11

I was 1 we went to Scarborough for a week and stayed for a fortnight There was a plague of ladybirds

Lessons outside in the shade; "I'm not in Love" and "Silly Love Songs"; First French Kiss; slathering on Bergasol sun oil and spending hours at the lido! ?

Another pregnant one here! Son born in 3rd week of September. ?

yes...but I was so much older then I'm younger than that now...seriously. we went camping with one year old and three year old in the forest of bowland and it rained and no one believed us. I tried to return some trainers that had fallen apart in the wet grass and they said that was impossible. Other than that I remember hanging the washed nappies to dry and flies gathering on them..and a horse giving birth in the field behind us. It was very deserted, have some lovely photos it was on a farm which was the highest in England I think. I sighed at another camping holiday and would loved to have gone somewhere and been looked after, cooked for etc and my husband (at the tine) said my whole life was a holiday.

My middle child was born on 11th July. I remember sunbathing in a bikini quite a lot and my huge bulge was very brown. After the birth it shrank back like a balloon and was almost black! Also swimming the day before she was born.

I went Interrailing around Europe with friends for several weeks and when we got back my Dad had been collecting newspapers to show us that it had been hotter here than in Greece where we had been. He and Mum had slept outside in the garden for a few nights.
I can sympathise now - I slept downstairs on the leather sofa on Monday night, just too hot for bed.

I was 18 and at Norland in Berkshire, a residential nursery nursing college which has since moved to Bath. Although I wasn’t particularly happy there I remember the Summer as being fantastic and I never wanted it to end. Ladybirds, loads and loads of them. The following year the Summer was dismal and from memory we waited awhile until another decent one came along.

Sorry, yet another year when I was away from the U.K., in the Far East, with the RN. Frankly throughout the seventies I spent almost every minute of my life in the briefest of short shorts, sandals and burned black, as we said in those days, as an A - Rab. (Young footloose sailors hadn’t heard of elf and safety and we as politically incorrect as anything) - but by Christ were we happy and, as the various foreign folk we regularly encountered, saw us as Ambassadors for the British Commonwealth, they were pretty delighted to see us, and our money, too.

Oh and my Dad being very very sunburnt, and making me sit and peel his back

I remember I was 10, and went to the Lake District on our way to Scotland. The camping field had enormous great cracks in, and the grass crackled under your feet...First time i've ever seen Cumbria brown and not verdant green.

Also my Mum made us girls wrap around skirts for the summer, but to save fabric, and money, her wrap-arounds didn't wrap around far. In the slightest breeze we were in danger of showing everything, and Mum insisted I wore my best pants...'just in case!'

I was almost 13 but can remember it very well, playing out all day every day without sunscreen, shades or hats! I don’t remember getting sunburn.
I remember Barnes Common which was quite near our house going up in flames and the choking smell of smoke

I remember it well was pregnant at the time. I lived in London at the time walking to Guy's hospital for anti natal clinic. My daughter was born at the end of September. We moved to Kent when my daughter was 6 weeks old. It was hot but fun too.

5 grans Chestnut- was pregnant with 3rd child - he arrived on 7th September- the day before the rains came!! Horrendous summer ? ? phew ?

I remember it well.
I was 14, and we went on school camp to Dorset and it rained for 3 days!
Also remember the plague of Ladybirds. It was a lovely summer though and I have many happy memories of it.

In '76 I lived in a flat and planted some Dahlias in pots on my balcony. Foolishly I watered them midday, only to see steam coming from the soil. I boiled those plants so could never forget that action by a young girl who knew nothing about gardening then.

We had a canal holiday and fortunately the boat had a very shallow draft. We cheerfully sailed past many boats who had run aground.

Ten weeks? no wonder I was fed up.

Greciangirl in 1976 we had 10 weeks over 30 degrees, 45 days with no rain, 15 days at 32.2 degrees or more. But these last two days have been hotter as we've gone over 40 degrees.
Highest in 1976 was 35.9 in Cheltenham
Highest yesterday 40.3 in Coningsby

I moved house from London to Essex during that heatwave.

I’m sure it was as hot then as it is now.

I was pregnant. Nuff said!

Howell was charged by the Prime Minister with the task of persuading the nation to use less water – and was even ordered by No. 10 to do a rain dance on behalf of the nation

That reminded me that I seem to remember that Bristol invited a Native American chieftain (I think) to come and do a rain dance!

Toward the end of that hot dry summer of ‘76 I went on holiday to Greece on the “Magic Bus” (I seem to recall it cost me £50, a lot of money in those days!) We came back two weeks later to torrential rain, the drought well and truly over.

My dd1 was 6 months old and dh away on a course fir 3 months. The summer had been hot, as was the previous summer when I was pregnant, but the heatwave which was around mid 30 s went on fir nearly 2 weeks but seemed longer.....stand pipes appeared and sharing baths etc was advocated.
I was at home indoors for days on end, feeling exhausted and struggling with a small baby, while my dh was having a great time on his course, which made things worse. I wasn’t a happy bunny.
The two days we have just had were hard but we already knew that by today things would be back to normal. Weather forecasts were less @ccurate in those far off days.

It wasn't Denis Healey who was appointed Minister for Drought, it was Denis Howell. Wikipedia says: "In the last week of August 1976, during Britain's driest summer in over 200 years, (Howell) was made Minister for Drought (but nicknamed 'Minister for Rain').[4] Howell was charged by the Prime Minister with the task of persuading the nation to use less water – and was even ordered by No. 10 to do a rain dance on behalf of the nation.[5] Howell responded by inviting reporters to his home in Moseley, where he revealed he was doing his bit to help water rationing by sharing baths with his wife, Brenda.[5] Days later, heavy rainfall caused widespread flooding, and he became known as "Minister for Floods".[6][7] Then, during the harsh winter of 1978–1979 he was appointed Minister for Snow.[8] [9]" Should have been called "Minister for Pointless Appointments at the Public Expense".