The Summer of 76

Some rather lighthearted memories of the notorious summer of 76:

Heatwave of 76? Lasted 5 years, it did. Shirt on me back were wringing wet by 8 am. We had to live off the desalinated sweat of me mother-in-law. Young 'un melted in front of me own eyes - had to scrape him off the lino, reconstitute him and put him in the freezer for the rest of the year. Never been the same since, poor lop-sided sod.

So hot that tarmac roads turned into boiling rivers of black lava. We used to stand on a plank and surf on ‘em.

It was that hot that we moved into the local blacksmith's furnace to cool down.

Yes it was hot for too long. But the body was able to overcome the heat by purchasing and consuming quantities of a special cooling liquid, which eased the suffering and was readily available

in buildings showing signs outside like 'Youngs' or 'Cameron's'.

Summer 1976.

My wife and I went camping near to Dartmouth for our first ever holiday together.

It was pretty darn hot... I very nearly discarded my thermal vest!

Fifty years on and she's been hinting it's time for another break, Ron.

Always been a bit impulsive, the missus has.

It was so hot you could fry and egg on the roof of your car. We had a Vauxhall Viva with a stippled vinyl roof.....that made it a bit messy.

I was a young policewoman trying to get old women to take off their coats or woolly cardies in the old market square. They kept fainting. You could have fried an egg on the slabs

1976 was the year we ran out of water and ladybirds staged a revolution

Isn't it amazing that during the summer of 76 heatwave, with standpipes & reservoirs almost empty, nobody ran round shouting it's the end of the world, global warming is here! We swam in the rivers, headed for the sea & just enjoyed the moment.

I well remember the summer of 1976. It was so dry and hot for so long that James Callaghan appointed Dennis Howell as Minister for Drought. Then a few days later it started to rain so much that he became Minister for Rain. The rain never stopped so he then became Minister for Floods. Then winter came and there was a lot of snow so he became Minister for Snow. He kept his sense of humour and blamed Callaghan for ordering him to perform a Native American Raindance. At the time I thought a Raindance was a good idea but obviously Howell got the ceremony slightly wrong and he accidentally instigated rain for 40 days and 40 nights.