Remember the heatwave of 1976?

Ginny- It was my 13th birthday on 3rd and was so hot- we didnt want faff of dancing etc so i just went to a friends house for a couple of days, & me, her, & some other friends packed a picnic & went off exploring near her house.we couldnt sleep at nights & were up most of night talking with their big sash windows up.On monday my arms were sunburnt red raw & so hot i had to put wet towels on them & get some sunburn treatment cream at chemist.Mum was not pleased with me..I remember we had the street taps as well all summer.

Yes I got married on 25 September 1976! As we went into the reception at 5.00 it started to rain and didn’t seem to stop after that! On our Honeymoon in Torquey we couldn’t use the bath-plug was missing to make sure, water to room was 7.00-9.00 in morn and 5.00-7.00 in eve and please don’t flush the loo unless really need to- in a shared bathroom ugh! It rained most of that week and by the end my wedding sandals that I wore fell apart from being so wet. On the way home the trains had to go slowly due to flooding on the lines!

I haven’t read past the first page - but this thread is fantastic, really interesting! Thanks everyone.
Chesnut I’m impressed by your skills as a diarist

I remember it starting to rain and our teacher letting us all run outside to dance around in it .

I was 7 and I fainted in the school playground from the heat.

I went on a 3+ week trip organised through school involving schools from up and down the country - coaches setting off on different days going through - well, Belgium, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, what is now Ukraine and Russia. And back again .. I think Yugoslavia too, but memory fails.

My passport stamps say Belgium 22 July 1976, Hungary was 25 - 26 July 1976, Czechoslovakia 13 August 1976.

Small hotels and camp sites, a government escort at all times. walked around Red Square, drove past the Olympic Stadium being built for the 1980 Moscow Olympics, Ballet in St Petersburg. I recall Romania as being incredibly poor, food was not good.

We stayed at what we were told was a popular seaside resort for the Moscow wealthy, diplomats and the like, in Odessa. Fairly primitive chalets as I recall, plagued by mosquitos - and were flooded out in flash storms! Had to sleep on the coach. Came home exhausted and grubby and desperate for a bath, my sister shrieking as I turned on the taps "The DROUGHT! The DROUGHT". Knew nothing about it.

We had a holiday due so decided to go to the Lake District because in the past had experienced rainy weather there. Went walking up Cat Bells and other hills wearing sundress and walking boots with thick socks. When the tent next to ours burst into flames we packed up and went to the northeast coast where it was cooler and visited the Farne Islands etc.

We were running a youth hostel in North Devon that year. Due to the lack of rain potatoes went up to £8.95 a sack, a horrendous amount at the time.
Using a coal fired Aga to cook on for up to 60 guests was challenging at times.
On the plus side, we did have a sailing dinghy, and spent most of our free time on the water.

I remember it well as I was pregnant with my first baby, she was born on 20th July, such a relief! She was 3 weeks early but was fine. I'd given up work 3 weeks before, should have been 6 weeks based on my due date, and spent the days in a darkened room with a fan, having frequent showers and going out to sit in the garden after dark!

Throwing up 24/7 as I was pregnant with my son. My poor daughter was two and I could hardly look after her. The heat made me much worse and I couldn’t leave the house. I put a paddling pool by the French doors into the garden and sat just inside. The best summer ever and I missed it!

Dennis Healey appointed a Minister for Drought after the heat wave went on. The day after he was appointed it rained!

I was doing my O levels and had to wear full uniform including tie for each exam. No windows opened in the hall and the heavy curtains were drawn.

We had just arrived home from our holiday in Cornwall when our older son, aged 5, looked a bit chubby around the jaws. At the last moment of incubation, he had mumps! Younger brother caught it too. Luckily neither of them was at all poorly - just mumpy! they were able to play out in the garden, splashing in the paddling pool, all summer. DS1 told me this year that he took his dad to task for running the tap while brushing his teeth. I remember that summer for the drought more than for the heat which was bearable. Reservoirs were small pools at the bottom of bowls of cracked mud. When exH and I went for a night or two to Shropshire, it was depressing to see the smoke rising from blackened fields and the constant presence of fire engines.

Really enjoyed reading everyone’s memories of Summer ‘76 . I was on a Marine Biology course in Wales and the plants were drought-ridden, so the greenfly population plummeted and ladybirds starting biting people instead!
Had to share a student house with 4 other girls , one guy and 1 bathroom - standpipes in the street and water-rationed . One flush per day. Grim.

I went on holiday with my boyfriend ( later to become my DH). He got sunburnt walking through Glencoe. We went "wild swimming" under a waterfall and took the advice to share a bath with a friend!
I remember the ladybirds! And the standpipes.

We indulged in an Oyster ice cream on week nights. Start of putting on weight, darn it, but they were delicious!

Yes, I remember the heatwave of 1976. It was 35 degrees in the shade at the beginning of June in Copenhagen, and then I went off to Spain to take a three week course in advanced flamenco dance.

Three classes a day of nearly two hours each, starting at 8 a.m. til 1.pm break for lunch and siesta the back for the last class at 4 p.m. After that two or three hours practising on our own, for our teachers were used to the heat and made absolutely no allowances at all for it being hotter than usual.

I also remember the heat wave in, I think, 1960 - my mother said it was the first time she had ever needed to water the garden, living as we did in th west of Scotland.

We had some glorious hot and dry summers in the 1980s too, 1983 probably and '89, or '90, where we laid my friend's three month old baby daughter on a pile of towels on the floor with nothing on at all, as she had the most horrendous nappy rash. We had about six feeding bottles with boiled water cooling in the fridge at a time for Antonia and gave her one as soon as the previous one was empty.

Rinsed the wetted towels, scalded them and hung them out - they were dry in five minutes and back on duty.

I had been in Valencia for 3 months from the Easter and when I came home in the July I thought it might be cooler…..no texts in those days! But it was just as hot so had my shoulder length curly hair cut short like a boy’s!

I worked as an analytical chemist at what was then North West Water Authority. I remember all the lab staff went outside at lunchtime and played rounders and cricket. We used a piece of wood for a bat. I've no idea where the ball came from. We weren't scared to spend time outside! My mother had hay fever for the first time. Her face swelled up!

I had just done my O Levels and spent 2 weeks of the summer holidays on a school trip in Guernsey - it was beautiful! We were camping in the grounds of what I seem to remember was either a nunnery or a girls school in St Martins. We had a glass of water to do our teeth with and had to wash in the sea. I just remember special beaches, one particular one on Herm where you could stand on the water's edge and dive in .... in those days I didn't have so much trouble with the heat as I do now, but with red hair and fair skin I always had to be careful. The other thing I remember was the night sky - there were no street lams so the skies were black and just covered with stars, first shooting stars I had ever seen - Elton John and Kiki Dee were number one and David Dundas and Jeans On was in the charts .... I can still picture a lot of the places we went to and remember names of the beaches and a gorgeous hotel we had to pass to get to Moulin Huet Beach, the closest one to where we stayed ....

We moved to a midlands City and away from the sea. The climate was stifling for days on end. There was a plague of ladybirds you were literally crushing them as you walked and they got up your nose.
I came in one day to see an army of ants marching under my back door into the kitchen and into the sugar!!!! I had to get Rent A kill and they advised me to decant all perishable cupboard things into plastic boxes with lids.
All I wanted was to go back and paddle in the sea.

Remember it VERY well! I was in the Fire Service at the time and it's the hardest I've ever worked! I lost 2 stones in weight over 3 months, and it was no picnic for my wife either as she was heavily pregnant with our first child!
On the bright side we did get to see Lynyrd Skynyrd at Knebworth!

I really don’t remember the heat. I had DS in March, but those were the days when it was never too hot for me.

My first child was born in March, just before the heatwave. We moved house in April, the heat started the next day - think it was April 11th.
It was a nightmare time to have a small baby!

saved ours