Remember the heatwave of 1976?

Another pregnant mum here Chestnut!

My second child, a boy, was born in August 1976. Remember watering the garden with washing up water.

Also going to our county agricultural show in the June, wandering around all day in the heat. On the way home we called in at the local hospital to see my sister in law who was also pregnant (her baby born two days before mine). She was in with pregnancy issues for weeks. She could not believe I had been walking round all day in the heat, and told DH, her brother, he shouldn’t have let me!

I was fine!

I’d not is

My first child was 8 months old when we went on holiday to Devon in the summer of 76. We had a holiday lodge with its own bit of garden and a washing line. By the time Is pegged out the baby clothes at the far end of the line the first ones at the other end were dry, they weren’t much bigger than a man’s hankie!

She had her first ice cream her face was a picture!

So judging by the posts on this thread, the 1976 heat wave lasted for a few weeks, that's how I remember it.

Neighbour

Chestnut

The TV programme shows everyone was drinking fizzy drinks not water! I do remember drinking a lot of Coke myself. What did that do to the children's teeth? Does anyone remember whether they gave their children lots of fizzy drinks? I think it was pretty normal then.

Mine just had one bottle of lemonade a week. I was a mean mother.
However, they were very envious because next door eighbour had a soda stream!

Remember searching for a canopy for my 8month sons pram. Everywhere sold out, (no internet then) this was end of May 76. Something you rarely see now, poor babies open to the elements or stifling under pram hood.

Consulting my pocket diary for 1976, I find references to upcoming business trips and committee meetings, but no mention of anything associated with the heat or the drought, nor indeed of DW's diagnosis of twins at 20 weeks and their eventual birth a month early. I was no Samuel Pepys!

I do remember pouring washing-up water on the plants

In the 1970s we had a weekly delivery from the 'lemonade man' who came around in a milk float.

The TV programme shows everyone was drinking fizzy drinks not water! I do remember drinking a lot of Coke myself. What did that do to the children's teeth? Does anyone remember whether they gave their children lots of fizzy drinks? I think it was pretty normal then.

I remember standpipes being put up. We had just moved into a house with windows down to the floor in both the lounge and main bedroom and double aspect kitchen. Never been good in the heat so we both struggled. When it eventually started to rain we stood on the patio with our arms in the air giving a jig of joy.

The part of the office I worked in was a prefabricated building, very cold in winter and airless in summer. Personal were so worried that, they came in with jugs of water to make sure we drank a beaker full every hour. But we were expected to be correctly dressed… ladies wore tights/stockings even though none of us saw clients
We didn’t have standpipes in the area I lived in.

I started working in a bank in June 1976, it was ridiculously hot, so hot the bank manager gave in & reluctantly allowed the men to remove their suit jackets, ties had to stay firmly in place though. We had to wear tights no matter what, we weren’t allowed to go bare legged or even wear trousers at that time.

Another memory of that scorching summer is of going to visit my grandad (dads dad) in hospital. It was still the old fashioned long wards at that time with beds on either side. There was a very frail old man in the bed opposite reaching out towards his bedside locker, my mum spotted him and thinking he was literally dying for a drink went over and poured him some lemon & barley & gave it him to drink in what she thought was a special drinking bottle. My gran who was a retired nurse had just arrived on the ward and saw what was happening & rushed across to stop my mum who was now holding the bottle up trying to get the poor old man to take a sip. My mum was so embarrassed when she realised the bottle was for him to wee in & not a special drinking bottle. We couldn’t stop giggling about her faux pas, at nearly 87 she still laughs about it.

Two children, 3 & 4.5. Husband offshore nearly all summer. I reverted to the living patterns of my tropical childhood. Got up at 6.00, did housework etc until 9.00 then shut the windows and drew the curtains until 6.00 pm.

I let the children run in and out as they wished. There was a paddling pool in a shady spot and DD had a battery operated toy washing machine for her (May) birthday. it lived on the patio and I gave her a bucket of water each day and did not worry how wet she got.

We spent the whole summer waiting for roofing contractor who was going to strip and retile our roof. He started the day the drought ended. Spent all day Monday stripping off the tiles and laying roofing felt. That night the heavens opened and it poured with rain non-stop. The roofing felt was so well laid not a drop came through and there were no leaks.

Our family was noted for having bad weather on holiday. We went to Wales in 1976 and the heavens opened

I remember travelling from Scotland to London with my dad, who was on business at the time. We took a walk to Hyde Park and stopped to buy some ice cold cans of juice from a man who was selling them near the park - he wanted £1 a can - even now that would be expensive, but at the time, it was outrageous! My dad was scandalised and needless to say, as a thrifty Scot, told him what to do with his vastly inflated prices!

I remember the summer of 1976 so well, but perhaps for more reasons than the heatwave.

I had twins diagnosed at a routine scan at 20 weeks on July 16th 1976. Routine scans were pretty unusual back then but this was a London Teaching Hospital.

I do remember the heat that summer, and the drought. I think we were advised to share a bath and not flush the toilet, to save water. There would not have been room for me and DH in a shared bath, with two babies on board.

I believe there were standpipes in the street too.

Identical girls were born prematurely in November 1976 so we
survived the heat of the summer. But I was 28 then!

Great article and I love the picture of the women in the street with their buckets.
Heatwave article and pictures

My boys were four and two. My Australian husband was amazed by the weather - just like home! I remember him saying that it must be going to be the wettest autumn ever - and it was.

I remember my boys being 6 and 3 at the time and being as brown as berries, living in shorts all day and/or having fun in the paddling pool for hours.

All the grass was like straw and we had loads of tomatoes.

We had a caravan holiday in Dawlish with friends, the kids in the sea all the time and rowing an inflatable boat [safe spot] ...a lot happened that holiday and ended up with my life changing in quite a big way.

Sorry now four grans! ?

Wow, three grans here who gave birth in 1976! Well done ladies, it must have been hard carrying full term in that heat.

I worked in a Butlins in North Wales and I remember it as if it were yesterday……

Swathes of dead ladybirds washed up on the tideline on the Somerset coast. Instead of the usual green of the seaweed the tideline - about 8 feet wide - was bright red. Utterly macabre.

Oh yes - and giving birth in the August after weeks of lumbering about like a lump of hot sweaty lard.

I remember camping at Weymouth. The campsite grass all died in the heat and the earth cracked. My little brother lost a toy down one of the deep cracks. All the dads on the campsite spent a blistering afternoon trying to retrieve it - shirts off, smoking and inventing devices from coat hangers. All unsuccessful.

My other vivid memory is of the heatwave ending with thunder and lightening and raindrops the size of old pennies.