Remember the heatwave of 1976?

I was with my brother and his family at the Music Summer School at Dartington Hall in Devon. I was a listener, not a musician.
I can remember you were only allowed 3 inches of bath water and my sister in law and I saved hours and carried it out to the trees in plastic bags. One of the gardeners asked us what we were doing and laughed when we told him we were trying to save the lovely trees from the drought.

My daughter was also born in 1976. So hot, but I remember we just had to get on with it. Glad she was my first.

I remember it well. Lugging used bath water in buckets to water the garden. Officially it lasted 15 days but the heat went from June to August. I remember sitting in the office with our feet in waste paper bins of cold water and the boss buying ice lollies for everyone.

Working in a local HMRC office in Romford ( when they did face to face customer service) no air con and windows that only opened an inch and doing up a nearly derelict house evenings and weekends but I was young and invincible...

I lived in a bedsit in Shepherds Bush. It was tiny and I had to sleep with window wide open (luckily on 2nd floor so nobody came in!) I worked in an office directly opposite Hammersmith Fire Station and every half hour or so the bells would start up and out would come the engine(s).

My youngest brother was born end of aug in 76 and I started comp school so I remember it well I was 11 lol

I missed it all - we were living in Germany at the time. I heard all about it though from letters from home (those were the days), and the German papers were full of it, so it must have been quite something.

I remember feeling I was missing out at the time, but I’ve never been good in hot weather, so it was probably just as well.

It was my parents Silver Wedding Anniversary in June 1976. They had booked for family and relations to have a meal at a restaurant that grilled steaks etc in the eating area and it was so unbearably hot and stuffy that we all got out as quickly as we could. No-one stayed for dessert!
We all went back and sat chatting and drinking in the garden until after midnight because it was too warm to go indoors. My husband and I had been married almost one year and I remember my Mum saying that it seemed funny to think that we would celebrate our Silver Wedding anniversary before she and my Dad would celebrate their Golden Wedding anniversary. Sadly, they never made it that far.

I remember how warm it was and playing out later with my friends. I remember going on a school trip and seeing the tops of the buildings of a village sunken to become a reservoir. I remember the coolness of the blue John mines and the blinding light and overwhelming heat when leaving the mine. I also remember how long my legs used to be I wore a pair of really short shorts and when I saw my legs I wondered why I wasn't taller. Also I remember a cheesecloth top that tied across my midriff. I was only 9 and had never had a top like it. I wore it to death. Walks and picnics with friends. Happy Days.

I had a baby on 10th June 1976. In the heat leading up to that my blood pressure began to rise and I was asked to go into hospital a couple of days before that. For the first six weeks of my daughter's life she lived in a terry towelling nappy and cotton sleeveless wrap-around vest and lay in her pram in the shade in the garden. I breast fed her without the presence of a fan to cool either of us down, and we took baths in tepid water. We were both absolutely fine - no drama, no scaremongering in the met office reporting.

It was my DD1s 4th birthday - I thought 'great!' can have a party outside, right? Wrong! It was so hot the children were all indoors running around the settee which was piled with party dresses!

O level summer, was at a strict all girls' grammar school. We 5th and Upper Sixth formers were allowed to take our study periods in the wooded areas around the games field. Absolutely unheard of! We normally had to sign in and out of the library which had floor to ceiling windows (without blinds) on two sides! ?

ginny

We got married on the 3 rd July 1976.
Bridal fashion then was long sleeves and high necks. Luckily my dress was fairly light fabric.
I can remember everyone using the order of service as fans.
We saved a fortune on drinks as every wanted long cold squash.

We married 9 October 76 and it was dull and drizzling all day!!! Photos were junk! We all looked miserable and wet! And we only had 2 wet days in lakes away as we'd only got keys to new build flat (we'd bought) on the day before!!! The heatwave was a great time! I was only 20 and sunbathed whenever I could and had the most amazing tan with Johnson's baby oil!

I was 19 and working in the quality control lab of a synthetic rubber factory on the shore of the Solent. The lab was full of small ovens for baking the latex, and it had a wall of South facing windows. Yes it was quite as bad as you'd imagine.

Being on the coast meant that weekends could be spent on the beach, which was lovely. I also played on a cricket match for the first and last time in my life - out for a duck, every ball I bowled hit for four, and I got a groin strain....

I worked in a hotel on an island for the entire summer and when I returned the customs officer was suspicious because I was still lily white. I started at 7.30 in the morning and worked through until gone 8 at night. As it was a family concern, we were expected to work for 7 days a week.

I qualified as a primary teacher in 1976. I remember our leaving do in the hot weather. I suppose it would be called a prom nowadays!?
We enjoyed our first narrow boat holiday on the Shropshire Union Canal (chemical toilet and no shower!?). We’ve been on many canals since then.

I remember it well. Long, hot, glorious summer, not to be compared with the last few days in southern/eastern England at all. (I'm advised by fellow Glaswegians that summer 1976 was a bit mince up here and they get tired of being told how dry and hot it was when it wasn't!)

I finished at university by completing my PGCE, helped my parents move from Hertfordshire to Berkshire, got married, spent a delightful honeymoon in the Cotswolds and moved to Hull where we were both due to start work in September.

The thing about 1976 wasn't that it was hot; it was but not record-breakingly so as the daytime temperature stayed in the low 30s throughout. Fahrenheit was more commonly used then and the headlines were about temperatures breaking 90F, which is just over 32C, so nowhere near yesterday's 40.3C in Lincolnshire. The thing about 1976 is that it was extremely dry, with not a drop of rain falling in many places between the Saturday of the Lord's Test in mid-June until August Bank Holiday. That after a very dry winter and spring and, almost forgotten because of 76, the long hot summer of 1975! It helped that once the weather broke in '76 it rained almost constantly for two months but the prospect of drought remains a problem on top of silly temperatures like yesterdays.

I should add that in Scotland yesterday it was a bearable 32C and just the kind of hot summer day I remember from 1976. It was still freakish for Scotland though.

I finished my 'O' levels and spent 3 weeks of the summer on a local archaeological dig. It was the most fun I had. Using a pickaxe to break through, wheeling wheelbarrows full soil and meeting people from other parts of the world and having a laugh. Loved being in the sun, though my skin didn't!!

I was in my first job, started in 1975, and remember getting really hot and bothered on the bus to work, only having 2 sets of clothes suitable for work and having to keep washing them each night so that I had something clean for work.
Going on my summer holiday with my parents, camping on the banks of the River Wye and the blessed relief of swimming in the river, followed by the revulsion on getting out of the water and being covered in small slimy creatures that looked a bit like leeches but which thankfully washed off.
And the cows in the field across the river, presumably normally safely contained there, being able to wade across the river, wander round the field our camping club was in, and one trying to get into Mum and Dad's tent.

I was a WPc in a gritty Northern town in 1976. Despite the heat, day after day, we had to ask permission of the Inspector to adopt "shirt-sleeve order" - not always given! I remember patrolling the streets at Two in the morning hearing the snores of the residents with their bedroom windows wide open. Oddly enough, there wasn't too much burglary - presumably because the burglars were too hot to be bothered! During the day, we patrolled in our Hillman Imp panda cars, which were like little ovens. The sergeant sent us to patrol the local park one afternoon: "And I'll be checking your ar**s for sunburn when you get back". Most people enjoyed the sunshine, and I remember it as a generally happy time. One saw a different aspect of the British character in that relentlessly sunny hot summer.

My childhood wasn't a happy one so we will leave it at that.

Heat wise - very hot. That's it. That's all I have to add

Had my second child in June '76. She arrived about 4 weeks early - don't blame her in that heat! But moved house when she was a few weeks old and the older one, and the baby screamed non stop for what felt like weeks on end! It was nightmareish ..............I vowed never to have another child or move house again (did have another one in 79 but didn't move house for about 20 years!). I do remember feeling guilty every time I washed nappies because of water shortages and re-cycling as much water as one could (washing up water etc) on the flower beds! The heat seemed to go on forever. Worst was having a rubber sheet on the bed in hospital after I'd had my daughter!

I started work in Control for the fire brigade in North Yorkshire
I remember the ongoing moor and heath fires we had

I remember syphoning bath water out of the bathroom window in order to water the courgette and tomato plants.

I should remember the heatwave of 1976 as our son was born on 5th August but to be honest I don’t remember the heat as being much of a problem. He was a planned home delivery and couldn’t wait to be discharged by the midwife so I could take him out. In those days you didn’t take babies out before then. Our first outing was to the local park and I can rember it being a lovely day. Being younger I think we were more resilient to the heat and there wasn’t all the scaremongering that we have nowadays. We just got on with it!