33 years ago

[Wowbagger]

On the weekend of 8th May 1976, the longest, hottest summer on record started. The first day over 80°F was (IIRC) 7th May, which was the day I passed my driving test.

It's bloody cold out there at the moment.

[Riggers]

Did you give the chap with the red flag out front any renumeration?

[clarion]

Nah.  I wave me red flag for free!

[Andrij]

Nah.  I wave me red flag for free!

*groan* 

 

[Jaded]

I was cycling to work in a hotel around then. The only time I've ever had hay-fever, from all the pollen. REAL green bogies. Yum.

[Wowbagger]

We got married in the April and moved into a flat on Westcliff sea front on 21st May. It was fantastic - too hot to swim in the day, so if the tide was right at night, skinny-dipping! One weekend afternoon we'd been out fishing off the sea wall quite close to where the March February WARTY went. There was an easterly wind and, since there were no fish about, we went for a swim. The thermocline effect was amazing and the water was warmer than any heated swimming pool I've ever been in.

[clarion]

I think the summer of 1976 was so hot and dry that Derby had one day without drizzle!

[Greenbank]

I was making my mother feel incredibly uncomfortable in the heat.

[border-rider]

I was a teenage punk-wannabe

[Salvatore]

33 years ago, hmmm, not sure. 32 years ago today was a public holiday in the GDR (I spent that summer at KMU* Leipzig) - Der Tag der Befreiung vom Faschismus -The Day of Liberation from Fascism, i.e. VE Day.

We went to the park and played footy.



*Karl-Marx-Universität.

[Regulator]

Ah - 1976.... the last time the UK had a proper summer.

[mike]

I was making my mother feel incredibly uncomfortable in the heat.

you're the same age as my brother.  About the only thing I can remember was my mum bursting into tears when the washing machine flooded the kitchen and she couldnt do much about it. My twin sister and I were too young to do much either, apart from playing in the bubbles...

[JohnP]

My wife was pregnant that lonnnnng hotttttttt summer. She was Ok most of the time.  We both remember driving up to Blair Atholl where my father had left his caravan at the end of a trip.   Arrived on Wimbledon Mens Final day, caravan was all set up, beers were in the fridge, all was well with our world.

[Ian H]

The year I moved to Devon. The well had run dry and the house was subsiding.



...and I realise I've been driving for 40 years.

[rafletcher]

I was a student in Pompey. Unfortunately an engineering student - lectures went right to the end of term, though the beach was nice and warm well into the evening - on a thin sandwich degree - so spent the following summer in a large tin shed (Allens of Bedford) working on building pumps, diesel engines and steam turbines. We had water fountains and salt tablets to help us cope with sweating quite so much!

[robgul]

The year I moved to Devon. The well had run dry and the house was subsiding.



...and I realise I've been driving for 40 years.

That's a sobering thought ... on 19 May I reach 44 years driving .... (and coincident with earlier posts my (then) wife was with child that summer, she was born in the September)

Rob

[clarion]

...and I realise I've been driving for 40 years.

I would have thought you'd need a break by now.

[Ian H]

...and I realise I've been driving for 40 years.

I would have thought you'd need a break by now.

I've cycling for longer.

[Nuncio]

I didn't have a pregnant wife or mother and I didn't pass my driving test.

My abiding memory:

School exams in the temporary buildings ('demountables') with the sun pounding down over the school yard. All the windows open but not the hint of a breeze.  ‘OK – you can put your pens down now’ led to a scrummage to the sink at the back of the room and a fight to get your head under the cold tap.  And you that to the kids today...

The weather forecasts were a bit 'samey' for several months.

And Dennis Howells (?) - minister for rain/drought - I remember him.

[Jaded]

...and I realise I've been driving for 40 years.

I would have thought you'd need a break by now.

I've cycling for longer.

But Englishing for less. 

[Mr Larrington]

Later that summer we went on holibobs to Pembrokeshire.  We stayed with my aunt and uncle in Cwmbran on the way home, and brought them a Delicious Present, viz. ten gallons of drinking water.

When we got home, the temperature in my garrett bedroom was 66 deg. C.  I kipped on the sofa for a couple of days until it cooled down.

[woollypigs]

Summer '76 was scorchio in Denmark too, I was 6 and spend much of the time at the beach making sand castles or digging big holes down to the cold sand/water to cool off.

And ended up with near 3rd degree burn on my buttocks, because it was to hot to run around in speedos and sun cream was the kind that washed off after on little dip in the water. There was no way that I would let my mum apply a new sticky layer on me every 5 min because the sun cream didn't soak in as it does today, so therefore attracted tonnes of sand.

I spend a few night and days laying on my stomach with burn cream on my back, bum and legs I can still remember smell the cream.

[peliroja]

Summer 76 I wasn't born 

[Regulator]

Interestingly, using the Central England Temperature record the average temperature over the whole summer (June, July, August) of 1976 was 17.77°C, compared to the average for the unusually warm current decade (2001-2008) of 16.30°C. There have in other years been hotter specific summer months, though.

[onb]

I also passed my driving test in 1976 ,ISTR I was courting what turned out to be thr first Mrs onb ,all the major towns in West Yorks had stand pipes up  ready for the water supply being cut off to taps.I spent a month on a  caving expedition to Matienzo in Northern Spain which was a brilliant experience and Matienzo is a place I really must go back to.