Spirit of ’76
There’s a hell of a lot more to a heat wave than a perennial disco classic from 1977. OK, so it was very warm yesterday and I was out in the worst of it. Being of Northern extraction, one of my ancestors was probably a raping/pillaging Viking, so it’s no wonder I’ve never been a fan of extreme heat. But let’s get things in perspective. We all know it won’t last. India, for example, is currently experiencing its most devastating heat wave for thirty-five years. Although estimates understandably vary, official statistics calculate more than 2,500 people have so far died; the highest temperatures recorded to date have been in Churu, a city in the desert region of Rajasthan, measuring 48.0 Centigrade, which in old money translates as an unimaginable 118.4 Fahrenheit. India’s dry season usually reaches a peak around April/May, although the climate remains stifling until the autumnal Monsoon cools things down a little. This summer is not only stretching the dry season way beyond its normal lifespan, but way beyond anything the Indian people should expect from what it is an annual climatic feature of their country.
One cannot help but wonder what the Mail and Express would make of a similar scenario being transplanted to this country. If a warm day provokes the familiar scaremongering warnings of old people and children dropping like flies as tabloids herald the imminent apocalypse, I suspect Brits undergoing a genuine Indian summer would result in every copy of the Mail and Express bursting into flames the moment they come into contact with human hands. No bad thing, mind. Anyone over the age of around 43 will of course recall 1976, forever enshrined as the benchmark by which all subsequent hot summers in Blighty have been measured. For those who weren’t around (which I wouldn’t imagine is a category that regular visitors to here fall into), what happened is as follows…
The summer of 1976 was the hottest in this country since that oft-cited landmark moment, ‘since records began’, so hot and so wide-reaching in its impact that it takes it place alongside all the other calamitous events to have characterised what was something of a turbulent decade. The only distinction it has in relation to the Three-Day Week and the Winter of Discontent is that most people actually enjoyed it, with the exception of those who had to queue-up to get their water supply from standpipes. Four rivers in Sheffield ran completely dry; reservoirs fell to such low levels that in some cases the ruins of the buildings that had stood there previously were visible above the water line; 45 days passed in some South East areas without any rainfall at all; spontaneous forest fires destroyed thousands of trees; a plague of ladybirds descended upon the nation like Biblical locusts. One of the hottest days ever recorded in this country occurred at Cheltenham on 3 July, with temperatures soaring to 96.6°F. Things got so bad the government appointed a Minister for Drought and vans patrolled the streets of the nation to enforce a hose pipe ban and inform the public when the water was being switched off. Watch any archive footage of that year’s Wimbledon or the England Test series against the West Indies and it looks as though the sports are being played on sand, so scorched is the playing surface.
But, amidst the panic, the British people chose to forego the newly fashionable package holiday to the continent and instead flocked to home seaside resorts, giving at least one aspect of the economy a boost when so many others were buckling under the heat. One didn’t have to travel to the coast, however; young ladies were evidently ‘beach ready’ in cities a long way from the sea that summer. I suspect more than one Raccoon regular probably lost something they were more than happy to lose in 1976, if you know what I mean.
When we’re all dead and gone, I think the summer of ’76 will still be talked about in the same way that 1816 is still talked about – the so-called Year Without a Summer, courtesy of the eruption of Mount Tambora in the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia), a cataclysmic event that cast a literal shadow across the globe and even inspired a young romantic runaway to pen the first recognised work of horror fiction in English literature.
Severe weather conditions are nothing new; at the opposite end of the scale, Britain used to experience winters that put more recent ones firmly in the shade, back when the arches of old London Bridge would affect the flow of the Thames so that any harsh cold spell would lead to the freezing of the river and the consequent staging of the famous ‘frost-fairs’ that were a regular tradition in the capital throughout the ‘Little Ice Age’ that spanned the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. The last one was held in 1814, before the climate grew warmer and a new London Bridge was built, along with the Victoria Embankment, something that reduced the width of the river and consequently made the freezing of the Thames less likely. Even the legendary winter of 1962/63 didn’t see the return of the frost-fairs, despite the fact that it was the coldest on record for 300 years.
Over the past decade, the winters have been relatively mild and the summers likewise; the only notable dramatic development in terms of the weather have been the floods that have almost become annual events in this country, the kind that send newsreaders to affected areas so they can read the headlines knee-deep in dirty water. Why the BBC feels the need to dispatch poor old George Alagiah to stand in effective sewage perhaps says something about British broadcasting that I’m sure some would be more than willing to elaborate on.
In fact, for those of us who remember the particularly bad winters of 1981/82 or 1990/91 (and even 1962/63), it’s hard not to shake one’s head and laugh when the media goes into an apoplexy every December or January, when a couple of days’ snowfall prompts ominous predictions of how we’re about to enter into the worst winter since (add applicable date). Within a few days, those of us who reside south of the border usually wonder what all the fuss was about and why so many wusses decided to take the day off work just so they could post photos on Facebook of them building an anorexic snowman with their kids – who also didn’t turn up to school because the teachers decided it was too chilly for the precious mites to sit in classrooms. Get a bloody grip! I remember being in a class of four during the winter of 1981/82, only because my serial truancy prior to that winter meant I’d still have been sent to school by my irate parents even if the Black Death had broken out on the premises. ‘So what if you’ve got pus-oozing lumps under your armpits? Get yourself to bloody school, you workshy fop!’
I’m not so foolish that I’m poised to incite a debate on the subject of Global Warming (however high it would push the number of comments attached to this post), but I will say that the genuinely life-threatening weather conditions in countries such as India at the moment in no way equates with a few warm days in the UK, despite what the newsstands scream. Yesterday may have been the hottest July day on record in this country, but it’s not really the same as what India is currently experiencing, is it? Believe everything the media tells you, however, and we’re already arrived at the sub-tropical hell hole JG Ballard predicted in his 1962 novel, ‘The Drowned World’, so basically, we’re all going to die. At least I’ve still got my surgeon’s face-mask that I haven’t worn since the great plague of Bird Flu. It might come in use.
Petunia Winegum
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July 2, 2015 at 9:18 am -
The last two mornings The Bestes Wife In The World’s Daily Wail has front[aged the HEAT WAVE -with demands that something must be done about it to protect the Elderly and The Cheeeldren…so no surprise there. Apocalyptic warnings that roads will melt, railtracks buckle and , no doubt, cows will give sour milk. Again, no surprise.
What , however, has given me pause for thought is the DM’s headlining of the expected temperature of this HEAT WAVE in degrees Réaumur…“Hardworking British Truckers trapped In Their 28.8 °R Cabs for Three WHOLE days!” -as the front page screams this morning.
Oh sorry, my bad, it’s the other out dated, archaic, temperature scale that the DM insists on using…that one with the German bloke’s name …you know…they showed us it in school…in the TV Schools programme “How We Used To live” I think it was called.
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July 2, 2015 at 11:01 am -
So the Mail’s have a go at the Sun – no change there then!
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July 2, 2015 at 11:02 am -
havING
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July 2, 2015 at 9:21 am -
For the climate we experience in the UK, on ‘hot’ days, it’s not so much the heat, but the humidity which causes discomfort.
Hence holidays in sunny Spain having usually higher temperatures, are more comfortable simply because the humidity is lower.
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July 2, 2015 at 9:25 am -
I’m not sure 1976 was so much hot, as just very dry, with a ladybird plague rather than locusts.
“Lord SEGAL My Lords, does my noble friend recall that during the Second Reading of the Drought Bill it started to rain outside in torrents, with accompanying thunder and lightning? If ever there should be a recurrence of the severe drought and this Act should ever lapse, that might be a suitable moment to reintroduce it.”
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1976/nov/02/drought-act-and-water-restrictions-
July 2, 2015 at 12:33 pm -
My recollection of 1976 is not so much any extreme heat, but the persistence of warm and dry days over an extended period. Not long married, it was our first summer officially together, when we learned the arts of back-garden barbecueing, amongst other things to do on balmy summer evenings, also being blessed at the time with both relative youth and enthusiasm.
Sadly, I am old enough also to remember the winter of 62/63 which had a similar profile, but at the other end of the temperature scale – not so much the extreme cold, but that it persisted for three whole months from late December and well into March – school never closed, life went on pretty much as normal but just with more clothes, both inside and out, as our back-to-back industrial terrace hadn’t yet heard of central heating and the outside toilet developed a nasty habit of freezing up overnight, to match the sparkly coating of ice on the inside of the bedroom windows – happy days.
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July 4, 2015 at 1:46 pm -
I seem to remember that nice Mr Callaghan (Jim, not Harry) appointing one Denis Howell as Minister for Drought – he was so effective that almost immediately he was appointed Minister for Floods – and later that year, I think, he also became Minister for Snow…
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July 4, 2015 at 2:17 pm -
Just as well he didn’t get made Minister for Global Freezing (a popular 70’s scientific theory) because he’d be on the rack of the PC-Police nowadays, for spreading disinformation…
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July 4, 2015 at 2:21 pm -
…and why not?
Denis Howell was clearly a well seasoned minister.
*Baddoom-tish*
I’ll get my coat…
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July 2, 2015 at 9:41 am -
I remember the summer of 76 very well. I was in my second and last year at a “prep” school on the Fylde coast. It took cricket very seriously. As a lonely young boy at a boarding school I had wiled away the evening hours over the previous summer and beginning of that last summer term in a solitary state, bowling a cricket ball against a chair which served as a wicket down on the back field. Since I had no coach, I experimented, and taught myself how to spin the ball. To cut a long story short,I had taught myself how to leg spin, in Shane Warne proportions. One evening in the early part of the term I (unusually) joined in a net session for the team. I bowled the captain around his legs. The headmaster was looking on.
“Do that again” he said, looking at me with curiosity. So did, and next week I was in the team. As I remember it, 6 or 7 wickets in my first game.
I remember a long hot summer of glorious sunshine (one rainy dayl), freshly ironed “whites” and teas in the pavilions. We were quite a good team, but lost the last game of the season, which was disappointing. It turned out I was quite a good fielder, but I couldn’t bat for toffee. I was only required to do so once, in that last game, where I remained not out for 0 as the last wicket fell at the other end.
As for the “heat”, I remained resolutely oblivious yesterday: best suite and tie and Oxford shoes.
The world has gone soft. And mad. As we all know.-
July 2, 2015 at 10:37 am -
Very evocative and lovely post Gildas. I too remember the summer of 76. I’d been at work 3 years by then, but don’t have any specific memories, I just recall it being “rather pleasant”.
As for the MSM and the way they report our weather, well they use the same ridiculous hyperbole that they employ for every other story they print. Sadly, it seems, we now live in a world of sensationalism, hysteria, screaming and shouting.
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July 2, 2015 at 11:39 am -
Thank you, and quite so. You know, one of my fondest memories of that summer was diving backwards at gully to take a left handed catch behind me, “blind”. Another was we had a boy called Eastwood in the team. He was our sort of Freddie Flintoff. One glorious Saturday afternoon was quite a crowd of parents and so forth watching, and many had picnics. Eastwood managed to smack a ball to the boundary right through his family’s picnic, having them scatter! Whether he did so on purpose or by accident I can’t say. I still remember his mum half berating him but laughing at the same time. At least, that’s how I remember it…
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July 2, 2015 at 9:51 am -
I do remember the summer of 1976 very well indeed…..
My then bit of rural Mid Wales had 22 consecutive days with the temperature over 28 degrees but as others have remarked, it was less the temperatures than the complete lack of rainfall that made it a stand out.
Towards the end we had mains water on for 2 hours a day only which made for an interesting life, particularly when you and a group of mates spent time trying to douse grass fires threatening farms by the nasty expedient of pumping farm slurry onto them…. you tended to get a a wide berth around you for obvious reasons…. “Thanks for saving my house but don’t come in…”
The day I left to start my first year at university the heavens opened…
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July 2, 2015 at 9:58 am -
As for the “heat”, I remained resolutely oblivious yesterday: best suite and tie and Oxford shoes.
The world has gone soft. And mad. As we all know.Indeed…and our antipodean cousins more so. Contrast a summer scene in “Outback Barby Jutting Tits” with one from “The Sullivans”. 1950s Australia wore 3 piece wool suits, ties and hats…and that was just the Sheilas. Last episode of “Neighbours ” I watched (back in about 1993) there was not one single corks-on-strings hat the whole episode.
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July 2, 2015 at 12:35 pm -
I had similar thoughts when reading about the Indian heat wave, marvelling at images of Raj families dressed to the nines in full Victorian body armour, particularly the poor women in their whalebone bodices. Those Empire-builders were made of strong bloody stuff.
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July 2, 2015 at 1:26 pm -
My personal heroine, Mary Kingsley, showed Victorian filial piety by taking up her late father’s researches in West Africa, always in crinolines and black bombazine.
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July 2, 2015 at 1:58 pm -
They were indeed a sturdy breed.
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July 2, 2015 at 6:39 pm -
In a jungle town where the sun beats down to the rage of man and beast
The English garb of the English sahib merely gets a bit more creased.
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July 2, 2015 at 10:09 am -
I wasn’t in the UK for 76 but the decent summers of 2003 and 2006 melted English reserve and, temperature aside, made the place pleasanter. One could discuss the weather in the post office and checkout queues without being frowned at for presumption, smile at and greet fellow pedestrians without arousing deep suspicion. Warmth translates into personal warmth.
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July 2, 2015 at 10:56 am -
I think a life lived outdoors is a much more sociable life – it has to be because people are sharing the same public spaces.
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July 2, 2015 at 10:38 am -
Summer of ’76 I’d been transferred to a job testing satellites, which had to be done of course, in a carefully-controlled environment. Something like 22C and 20% humidity. I’d come out at the end of the day, jump into my drophead Lotus, and drive off, whilst all behind me were flapping doors and taking sunscreens off their cars.
There was one gotcha though. I had to test all of the bits of the satellite for stray magnetic fields, in two large empty gas tanks (about 20′ diameter, 40′ high) to screen off the Earth’s field, and no, it wasn’t aircon. I had to wear nothing but paper overalls (with matching hat, mask and gloves). Pure hell for about three days.
I also remember the blinding thunderstorm which ended it all. Don’t seem to make ’em like that nowadays.
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July 2, 2015 at 1:14 pm -
Around that time I worked in a laboratory that had the benefit of air-con leftover from when it had been an altimeter manufacturing unit. We couldn’t understand why everyone passing by looked like the might faint!
However there was a winter when the heat soak test of our ‘model’ had slipped from the planned summer slot. It was weird to pop outside, dripping with sweat and sleeves rolled up, to see the snow on the ground.
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July 2, 2015 at 10:55 am -
1976 – Petunia, you have a knack for postmarking the landmarks of my life. A levels, leaving school, getting my first full-time job with a view to a career, first boyfriend (nutter, short-lived, thank heavens), holiday romance girlfriend (she was waaaay out of my league, but lovely), punk gigs, first bank account which I opened so I could send a cheque to buy a ticket for the Thin White Duke’s “Station to Station” tour (was there first night at Wembley, bunking off school with a warning from my German teacher – who I had pre-informed – to be “very careful” if I was spending the day in London by myself), stepping out of the closet, singing the words (and meaning them ) of Alice Cooper’s “I’m Eighteen”… “T’was so sweet, so fraught with bliss”…
…except for the plague of greenfly which preceded the ladybirds (and probably fuelled it). I can remember going to school and they got in your mouth and up your nose and in your eyes. Like Gildas, I remember playing cricket at school – in platform shoes (don’t ask) and spraining my ankle. I walked home about two miles on it and a kindly woman stopped and offered to take me home and bandage it. I politely declined her offer. When I told my schoolfriends the story, they told me I could have lived out their teenage MILF fantasies. At that point they didn’t realise that was one of my fears.
Oh, and losing my two front teeth after being “queerbashed”. But it was a glorious summer.
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July 2, 2015 at 12:41 pm -
Quite an eventful summer! My most abiding (and horrible) memory of the heat is being dragged around a golf course by my dad, desperate for a drink of anything, yet not granted this reasonable request until reaching the club house after about two hours of having to endure my pig-headed father taking forever over every shot. I don’t think I’ve ever known boredom like it before or since. And you were watching Bowie on the ‘Station to Station’ tour! Lucky bugger!
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July 2, 2015 at 1:29 pm -
I sympathise… I have never understood the attractions of playing golf, and watching it is beyond my patience. Some golfers do wear some snazzy shoes, though.
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July 2, 2015 at 3:46 pm -
Golfers also wear only one glove, usually on their non-wanking hand – must be a message there somewhere.
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July 2, 2015 at 11:08 am -
My one abiding memory of the Summer of ’76 was it was the year we took in a stray goldfish! (think about it) A small – very small – stream ran alongside the green opposite our house and following the thunder storm that broke the drought it became a mini raging torrent for an hour or two, the land having been baked so hard that nearly all the rainfall just sloughed off.
Higher up from us it ran through the gardens of some posh houses many of which had incorporated it into their landscaping.
My daughter proudly came home carrying this waif (quite in what I can’t remember) that she had found in a puddle after the water level subsided and we had to give him/her/it a home. Because he/she/it was found in the rushes at the side of a stream she christened him “Moses” He lasted quite a long time and survived at least one house move IIRC.
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July 2, 2015 at 11:15 am -
I well remember the summer of 76. I’d started work in a bank a few months previously and I went to relatives in Allestree for a week, my first ever holiday on my own steam. I think it was August mainly. Anyway, I was asked to run an errand to get a prescription fir one of my relatives. No prob. Well yes prob since I’d only a sort of rough idea where the surgery was.
No matter. On I went, and I just couldn’t find it. What do you do when you can’t find a place? You ask someone. No one around though. Okay. I thought I’d ask at a house then. I chose one at random and went to the side wooden gate which was open and walked to the back of the property. A gentleman was standing in his garden. He was using a hose to water his plants etc. I turned rail and left him to it. The water restrictions were in force. Naughty man!
I also went to watch Derby v Man Utd on the final Saturday I was there. There was an on pitch riot at half-time leaving a guy stabbed in the pitch. I’d planned my route to safety at the end of the match which meant me climbing onto the pitch, running along to a sort of bridge going beneath a stand. When the final whistle blew I started to climb onto the pitch and policeman stopped me whilst all around people were getting onto the pitch. The policeman probably saved me getting involved in shenanigans as I was able to walk out with no hassle at all.
Did I mentiin that the music played during the half-time riot? Dancing Queen by ABBA.
Those were the days. It was very, very hot.
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July 2, 2015 at 11:15 am -
My sister married on the day the heavens broke late July ’76. My mother, my girlfriend and I were making the 100 yard walk from home to church but had to shelter in a neighbours coal shed.
That was also the day I discovered that rearranging spark plug leads with the engine running is not a good idea (my sister’s mini) ….
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July 2, 2015 at 3:48 pm -
Trying to drive any old Mini in the rain was never a good idea, that’s why you always saw so many Minis clustered under the motorway bridges, waiting for the storm to pass.
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July 2, 2015 at 11:21 am -
The Summer of ’76 is etched in my mind as some of my first memories – 3/4 months off my 3rd Birthday. We enjoyed a holiday in Burnham-on-Sea, visiting Weston Super Mare and Bath (where, so I’m told, my Dad performed a citizens arrest on a flasher!) with my Mum 6 months pregnant with my sister. I remember the ladybirds, which of course would be fascinating to me at the time.
Perhaps due to memories being old & hazy when you’re very young, throughout my childhood (and beyond, really) I always looked the Summer of 76 as being a great time for hit singles – which is curiously the opposite to how the ‘punk mythology’ brigade believe it to be. But, regardless of whether the artists were ‘cool’ or not, I still say the likes of Silly Love Songs, You To Me Are Everything, The Soul City Walk, Tonight’s The Night, Young Hearts Run Free, Harvest For The World, Let’s Stick Together, A Little Bit More, The Boys Are Back In Town, In Zaire, Dr Kiss-Kiss, Jeans On, Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, You Should Be Dancing, Let ‘Em In & even the country hits like What I’ve Got In Mind (or ‘What I Got Is Mine’ as Jimmy called it on TOTP) are all top drawer.
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July 2, 2015 at 12:45 pm -
A citizen’s arrest of a flasher! How very mid-70s!
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July 2, 2015 at 1:04 pm -
Victimisation of a fun-loving Streaker more like…
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July 2, 2015 at 3:29 pm -
Don’t look Ethyl!
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July 2, 2015 at 11:25 am -
I remember ’76 well – I was 21, living in Earls Court and working in the periphery of the advertising business.
It was hot in many ways than just the temperature. -
July 2, 2015 at 12:06 pm -
Rehearsing for, and taking part in, a military funeral as a member of the honour guard during the summer of ’76 brought back memories of how we managed to cope. Big , black, bulled boots, No2 dress with No1 dress hat, and lugging a bloody heavy SLR around while slow marching and doing arms drill (Present Arms, Rest on your Arms Reversed, etc), plus the seemingly endless periods stood at attention, caused me to lose 8lbs in weight, it was so hot. However, we considered it an honour to be selected and no one fainted. Those were the days.
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July 2, 2015 at 12:42 pm -
I went on holiday to visit relatives in Canada. It pissed with rain every day, and that only rubbed it in what was happening at home. ‘Worst summer we’ve ever had,’ they said.
On our return, everyone knew we’d holidayed somewhere extreme, as we didn’t have a suntan.
The one high point was that we missed the plane home because of a muddle over dates, and were drinking what passes (pisses?) for beer as our plane went on its way.
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July 2, 2015 at 12:49 pm -
The dry weather of 76 also caused a peak in household subsidence claims as the subsoil dried out and shrank (Engineer might like this). It became obvious that ‘summat must be done’, and what was done was to introduce regs to make builders put in deeper foundations. It also resurrected a paper written by the late Bill (W. H.) Ward of the Building Research Station, written in 1947. Bill had been called out to investigate a lot of cracked houses where the occupants claimed it was ward damage, but nary a bomb had fallen nearby. Ward’s solution was (correctly) to blame tree roots for removing water from the soil, but the 50s and 60s had been different weather-wise, and the knowledge was all but forgotten.
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July 2, 2015 at 2:12 pm -
Indeed! Another case of engineering knowledge advancing because of something we didn’t really forsee.
Hot weather does some funny things. I once had a (mercifully) brief involvement with a ‘design audit’ of a services installation in a large industrial site. The services were two steam lines and a water supply pipe of quite large size (18″ diameter, from memory). Someone had decided to use a grade of plastic for the latter, instead of the usual ductile iron, and that plastic was black in colour. As the line stood empty for some time after construction but before commissioning, the first really hot, sunny summer day caused the top half of the line to expand significantly, but not the shaded lower half. In several places, the line thus rose up off it’s supports, taking on the aspect of a banana, then toppled gently sideways off the piperack. The designers had considered expansion of the steam lines (steam’s hot stuff!) but not for water (ambient temperature). We all learned a bit from that job!
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July 2, 2015 at 2:21 pm -
war damage, that is, not Ward damage ….
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July 2, 2015 at 4:00 pm -
A company where I worked installed its back-up ‘lights out’ computer-room in the basement directly under a two-level car park. To make sure it was watertight, they went to great lengths to seal the upper, open to the elements, deck flooring – aimed at preventing any rainwater getting down onto the multi-million pounds of IT gear two floors below. So far so good.
Trouble is, they’d never realised that, on a very bad winter morning, many cars would arrive onto the middle deck carrying vast amounts of snow on them, which promptly melted and leaked down onto the mainframe disc and tape-drives below. A very expensive lesson was learned in 1981/82 – the middle deck was thoroughly water-proofed very soon afterwards.
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July 2, 2015 at 1:05 pm -
Congratulations to Petunia. Who needs a Minister for the Weather.
“11.30
We have a delayed start here due to the rain. The covers are still on but it’s only a light shower and hopefully we’ll be up and running soon.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/tennis/wimbledon/11712619/Wimbledon-2015-day-four-live.html -
July 2, 2015 at 1:20 pm -
I don’t want to boast but I have experienced temperatures greater than 48degrees C in the Wadi Thaim, in the fun filled colony of Aden. This was a stage of our empire unglueing literally a year before we pulled out of that ghastly place. Aden today has been absorbed by Yemen and as we all know a jolly time is being shared by all. I wonder whether some locals wish we were still there?
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July 2, 2015 at 1:57 pm -
Did you serve under ‘Mad Mitch’ of the Argyll?
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July 2, 2015 at 6:23 pm -
No. The 1st Royal Tank Regiment, the Royal Artillery (both acting as infantry) and the Army Air Corps provided back up cover
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July 2, 2015 at 1:26 pm -
The summer of ’76 I was working in Glasgow.
Every week or two I’d fly down to London on for the day on the fantastic Shuttle service. As we flew over the countryside there were patches of green, but the impression was one of a parched land.
For those suffering over the past few days, I’ve had the pleasure of turning on the bowling green watering system late evening & walking about under the great arcs of spray, er….inspecting the green. -
July 2, 2015 at 1:57 pm -
I remember the cover of Private Eye that September.
Dennis Howell (On kiddies slide)”Do you know why I’m Minister for Water?”
Unsupervised child (The horror)”Because you’re so wet.”
But then, Private Eye was once a satirical magazine. -
July 2, 2015 at 2:03 pm -
Ah, 1976 and the Windies in England. That’s when we first heard of one Viv Richards – and we continued hearing of him for some time to come.
I went fishing almost every day of that long summer, being a schoolboy on holiday. Except for the day we went to Old Trafford for my first ever day at a Test Match. Two pence on the bus to Manchester and 40p to get in the ground.
It rained! And England were bowled out for 71.
It also rained on Midsummer’s Day in 1976 in some areas and best of all – on June 2nd it snowed!
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July 2, 2015 at 3:47 pm -
I’ve heard about that freak snowfall before. Apparently, it caused a once-in-a lifetime cricket scoreline: ‘Snow Stopped Play’.
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July 2, 2015 at 5:11 pm -
That’s correct.
Apparently it was the first time Clive Lloyd had ever seen snow. What a place to see it – England in June in what was to become the hottest (driest, longest?) summer in memory. Cricketers of such quality do not of course ever see a winter, anywhere in the world.
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July 3, 2015 at 6:26 pm -
In point of fact the “snow stopped play” match at Buxton was the year before – June 1975. That year also had a hot summer (although not quite to the standard of ’76!) which was why the snow came as such a shock – it’s still the closest to midsummer that snow has fallen in England. In sunny conditions on the first day (Saturday) Lancashire racked up a score of 400 plus and nabbed a couple of Derbyshire wickets before close of play. A Sunday League match was played the next day in similarly warm conditions only for everyone to arrive for day 2 of play in the County match on the Monday to find a snow storm at the ground (there was also snow at Essex v Kent match at Colchester but Buxton, being at a greater elevation- the highest first class cricket ground in England – had the worst of it) and play was abandoned for the day with six inches of snow on the ground; this was still in the era of uncovered pitches.
On the next day the snow had disappeared leaving a treacherous pitch for Derbyshire to face against a dangerous Lancashire pace bowling attack (Ken Shuttleworth, Peter Lever and Peter Lee) – no wonder they were all out for 42 and 87 and lost by an innings and a lot ! One of the Derbyshire batsmen (the late Ashley Harvey-Walker) strode to the wicket and promptly removed gave the umpire (Dickie Bird) his false teeth wrapped in a hanky telling him “Look after these for me, I won’t be long”; sure enough, three balls later, he collected his gnashers and strode back to the sanctuary of the pavilion ….
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July 2, 2015 at 2:22 pm -
Meanwhile, on the Conn-tee-nont this coming weekend…
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b116/horta/vlcsnap-2015-07-02-12h15m04s725_zpsj5wuscj7.pngGerman TV news weather informs us that Saturday may well be the hottest day since records began. Previous record was 40.2C …of course…had to be ‘.2′, bloody Germans and their sense of precision …any other race would simply round up or down….or give a gallic ‘ comme ci comme ça ‘ hand jive.
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July 2, 2015 at 4:28 pm -
It is important to separate what the media, that self appointed guarding of public knowledge, says about something and what actual experts are saying. Needless to say, the media will write whatever gets them scary headline, no matter how wrong it is. No branch of science or engineering or any human endeavour is immune.
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July 2, 2015 at 5:13 pm -
I got married in June 1976 so no chance of forgetting it. Glorious weather, I don’t mind the heat but the humidity kills me, not a lot of fun for a honeymoon! I liked that in Teheran, however hot it was never too humid being so high above sea level. Also remember that awful winter 62/63. We were living in a really awful bedsit in London with no real heating, one electric fire and snow coming in the windows but at 18 who cares! it got so bad that eventually we went back to Scotland until it finally thawed. It was the worst and longest winter I can remember.
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July 2, 2015 at 5:22 pm -
I now realise how old I am becoming ..remember the summer of 1947 and the cricket…Edrich and Compton…and a staggering harvest in Cambs.
Eheu! eheu! -
July 2, 2015 at 6:13 pm -
As we’re contemplating the 1970s, we read today of the death of Val Doonican, that gentle crooner of the Irish style, an almost permanent resident on the Saturday evening TV schedules of the time.
How soon, one wonders, before Slater & Gordon start compiling a list of those who have suddenly, but belatedly, discovered the apparent reason that they have been so utterly traumatised by the sight of rocking-chairs or woolly jumpers for the past four decades ?
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July 2, 2015 at 7:17 pm -
I take the protestations of ‘the hottest day/month/year on record for eva’ with a very large shovel full of salt, especially when said by the BBC. Why, because it all depends on where the temperature was taken (the present one was apparently taken at Heathrow Airport – vast amounts of concrete reflecting the heat and lots of nice hot jet engines adding to it. It is almost as if there might be a big meeting due at the end of the year.
I also wonder why the chicken little ‘the sky is falling’ attitude is taken by the MSM. It has been hotter in the UK and it is definitely hotter in other parts of the world. It is almost as if the MSM have the idea that all their readers/listeners are going to drop dead from the heat and then they wouldn’t have anyone left to tell how to think.
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July 2, 2015 at 8:48 pm -
Did I mention that the music played during the half-time riot? Dancing Queen by ABBA.
I seem to recall The Wurzells ‘ollerin about their new Combine Harvester, which seemed to be some kind of euphemism, but for what I’ve never quite worked out.
We spent Wakes Week in Great Yarmouth in a caravan (very 1970’s) and I remember the heat haze shimering across the Norfolk roads on our way there like some extract of a Bob Hope and Bing Crosby “Road To…” film.
Grand days and still remembered fondly.
This is also why when some CAGW nutter comes on the news and says “Last year was the hottest ever” an I’m like “nah”.
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July 2, 2015 at 8:54 pm -
I had my sleeves rolled up when I played cricket. But I had a perky red cap and everything else was all buttoned up in my “whites”. Ever since then I quickly tan on my arms up to where the sleeves were rolled up. I don’t even need to go in the sun much. Just the presence of hot sun as I sip shandy/Chardonnay/bier blanc in the shade will do it. The rest of me would burn if you shone a Halfords torch on me.
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July 3, 2015 at 12:03 am -
As Woody Allen once said… “I don’t tan, I stroke.”
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July 2, 2015 at 9:16 pm -
Summer of ’76 for me was spent enjoying the delights of the Ardoyne, New Lodge and Shanklin.
Not sure which was most memorable, hours of foot patrols in flak jackets, finding the odd disemboweled body at a sultry 3am or deployed at 5am – ‘protecting’ the Orange Marchers exercising their lawful right to march in celebration of King Billy et al.
Probably the latter as I well recall being sickened at recognising the Senior Officer from Oldpark RUC Station at the head of the march. Dark suit, white shirt, orange sash, umbrella (even in that heat), bowler hat. Marking time and antagonising the RC residents behind the wriggly tin. As the drums beat louder, and the whistles screeched ‘The Sash My Father Wore’, over the barricade came the stones, rocks and petrol bombs.
Wholly unpredictable and spontaneous of course. A few of my lads were hurt; but soon got over it. More than can be said for the rest of the Province.
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July 3, 2015 at 1:38 am -
@Mudplugger : Thank you for reminding me of the winter of 62/63. I also well remember the trek down the yard to the outside toilet where a parrafin lamp was left burning to stop the place freezing up. I do resent it when I hear that all we baby boomers enjoyed a particularly charmed life. Living in a two up two down with no bathroom and an outside toilet, I don’t consider that we were particularly spoiled. I remember riding to school on the bike that I had recieved after passing the eleven plus exam and meeting my mother, a nurse riding home after her night shift, her nurses cape billowing out behind her. My father, a carprnter /joiner worked outside all that winter and I seem to remember that I survived wearing short pants and knee socks. At school Rugby was curtailed and when the teachers found out that our unusually fast cross country times were due to the fact that we were cutting across the frozen rivers, (even though we stopped for a smoke),we were made to run the course again. Happy days!
By 1976 I had been to university and was newly married. I remember my brother dropping his Suzuki 750 triple after ploughing a furrough in melting tarmack. I remember how the summer ended, my wife and I had toured around North Wales for a few days on our Vincent Rapide motorbike – our only mode of transport. As we were leaving Wales we stopped to look down as a huge thunderstorm rolled across the Cheshire plain. We were soon under the storm but by the time we had reached the pub called “The Forest View” an old hunting establishment it had passed and we were able to enjoy a few pints served through a small window into the garden which smelled of recent rain and honeysuckle. Happy days!
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July 3, 2015 at 6:52 am -
Good Lord, different days indeed. Much of what you write brings back “recovered memories”, especially the widespread use of parrafin for heating and short trousers. I was in short trousers until the third year at grammar school. I was born in 1956 so have some vivid memories of the 62/63 winter – walking to primary school with snow coming well above the tops of my wellies, 2 miles each way, on my own, and yet lived to tell the tale. In those days we still got the daily milk allowance, and I remember many winter mornings when the milk had frozen in the little bottles and forced the foil tops off. The toilets at my first primary school were outside and open to the air – no roof. Like you say happy days!
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July 3, 2015 at 8:01 am -
Isn’t it these memories that make us so dismissive of today’s bleating about austerity & poverty?
Just speaking as 1943’er.-
July 3, 2015 at 9:42 am -
Very much so, yes.
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July 3, 2015 at 7:28 am -
My family moved from Cornwall to London during the summer of 1962. Our house was in the shadow of Kensal Green gasworks, which had a huge gasometer. It rained cats and dogs on the August bank Holiday and I can still remember the torrents of water gushing from the overflows on the roof high above us. Apparently it was the wettest August bank Holiday since records began.
A few months later we had a smog caused by the smoke from the Guy Fawkes Night bonfires not dispersing as there was no wind at all. The smog was so thick, so all enveloping that one couldn’t see beyond half way across the road and the traffic noise was almost non-existent. Apparently it was the worst smog since records began.
Finally that cleared and then on Boxing Day 1962 it snowed. The snow froze and remained frozen hard for about three months.
Life went on. I was 13 and my chores included raking and cleaning the fireplace and lighting the fire every morning, regular trips to buy paraffin for the only other heater in the house apart from the fire in the living room. The oil heater kept the kitchen warm, but the toilet was at the back of the house and was freezing. You didn’t stay there long.
Then there was the walk up the road into Ladbroke Grove, over the railway bridge and down some steps to join the queue for coal. A 56lb bag every couple of days, which I’d push in my younger brother’s pushchair specially commandeered for the purpose.
Apparently it was the worst winter since…you get the picture.
And it was a one and a half mile walk to school in all weathers , four times a day as I walked home for lunch.
Better stop now as it’s sounding like The Four Yorkshiremen
And the Summer of 1976? That was the first and only time I tried to get a suntan. I started out very white, got very hot, very red and finally very white again. -
July 3, 2015 at 8:33 am -
Sorry, Pet – your targeted reminiscences of summer ’76 seem to have been hijacked by us old timers re-living the winter of ’62/’63.
That’s the trouble with Alzheimer’s, we can’t remember anything as recent as that, so we revert to our earlier times. -
July 5, 2015 at 12:04 am -
Always willing to oblige PW – comment #76 coming up. In the winter of 62/63 newly married we shared a big old ramshackle rented house with another couple – the (other) Mrs being in the early stages of pregnancy. After how long? the water supply from the main to the house froze solid with all the consequences you can imagine. It happened to lots of houses in the area.
Through the grapevine we heard the council had a cunning trick to restore supplies by passing an electric current through the supply pipe and, in effect, turning it into a heating element. So we phoned them and asked if we could be done please to get the response “Of course sir – you’re number 3126 on the list” “But you don’t understand, there’s a pregnant lady in the house” “Ah, well, that does change things. You’re now only 876 on the list – and we’re doing about 20/30 houses a week”
So onto Plan B. Both us husbands scrounged copious numbers of orange boxes and other combustible veg boxes from the Greengrocer over the road piled it in a heap along our best guess at the line of the pipe taking the stop cock outside and the ingress point inside as our guide. We had just got a decent blaze going when the widow next door who owned and rented out the house came home and told us that as she recalled it her husband had laid the gas supply pipe and water pipe alongside each other.
Put the fire out and waited for the thaw – which was weeks later.
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