Think not now? How did England toast during the TEN-WEEK heatwave during the summer of ’76 – Rise to that?

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

In the midst of the heat wave hysteria, the Letter reminds us all of a truly vibrant summer of 1976:

Wildfires broke out, speed restrictions were imposed on some railway lines and hospitals declared a ‘serious incident’.

Hot weather in the UK this summer will peak next week, when mercury could reach 39C (102F) in the UK. London.

The current incessant sunshine has brought back memories of the summer of 1976, when 15 consecutive days saw temperatures of 89.6F (32C) somewhere in the UK.

Overall, there have been ten weeks of intense heat that saw widespread drought, mass use, and even a halt in the infamous ‘Black Panther’ trial, after a woman suffered ‘ heat exhaustion’ collapsed.

In a First Division match between Manchester City and Aston Villa, the Man City player was hit with four weights, prompting the team’s captain to call for an end to ‘summer football’.

At that year’s Wimbledon tennis championships, the umpires were allowed to take off their coats for the first time in living memory, while the major roads were littered with broken-down cars that had overheated.

Inclement weather also increased the number of 999 calls to home areas disturbed by rising temperatures due to the heat.

The summer of 1976 was partly due to very hot air originating in the Mediterranean. The warm weather and lack of rain began on June 23 and did not ease for more than a month.

The highest temperature recorded in the summer was on July 3, when the mercury hit 96.6F (35.9C) in Cheltenham. The average daily maximum temperature is 67.8F (19.9C).

At the Wimbledon Championships, where Bjorn Borg will claim the first of his five titles and a young Sue Barker has reached the quarterfinals, 400 people have been given the ‘sunbathing’ treatment in just one day.

The conditions prompted officials to relax the strict dress code for referees for the first time since the tournament began nearly 100 years earlier.

The trial of kidnapper Donald Nielson, who was nicknamed the Black Panther and charged with the murder of a 17-year-old woman, was halted at Oxford Crown Court when a woman in a public gallery fainted. .

In the House of Commons, bar staff took to the streets to protest when officials refused to allow a similar relaxation of the dress code where they should have taken off their traditional green jackets.

Above them, the Big Ben clock on what is now known as the Elizabeth Tower was severely damaged solely by heat-induced metal fatigue. It took three weeks to get it fixed.

Elsewhere, dozens of people recklessly plunged into the water at Trafalgar Square’s fountain to try and cool off.

As well as the weight loss during the football match between Manchester City and Aston Villa, the Metropolitan Police handled more than 600 domestic nuisance calls per day than usual.

As the drought worsened, a strict hose ban was put in place in most places and residents were encouraged to notify authorities if their neighbors were using the water unnecessarily.

Showers instead of tubs are recommended, showering only if there is no more than 5 inches of water in the tub.

The drought was made worse by a lack of rain last summer, meaning reservoirs and rivers were already low.

The lack of water caused the fires to break out. As with the fires in Essex and Yorkshire, 300 residents in an elderly home in the New Forest had to be evacuated when a fire broke out nearby.

Farmers are also struggling as thousands of acres of arable land fail, sparking fears that food prices will rise dramatically.

Street vendors in London’s Hyde Park have been criticized for overcharging at 40p for a bottle of Coca-Cola, even though they are charging 22p in the Dorchester hotel across the street.

The weather also causes problems for couples, prompting a newspaper to give them advice on how to stay cool in the bedroom.

The drought became so severe that the then Labor government, led by James Callaghan, considered getting the water by tanker from Norway.

Legislation – the Drought Act of 1976 – was passed in a snap to both impose a nationwide ban on hoses and give emergency powers to the government allowing it to cut or shut off water supplies to industry.

The then sports minister, Dennis Howell, was appointed as the new minister because of the drought.

In Wales, the main water supply was cut off for up to 17 hours a day.

Each standpipe – an outdoor faucet installed on the street – that everyone has to use is shared between 20 homes.

By the end of August, only 90 days of water supply remained in London. In Leeds, the number is 80.

It spurred t-shirt makers to start selling clothes bearing the tagline: ‘Save water – Shower with a friend’.

Thanks to the drying up of reservoirs and river sections, thousands of fish die off, while birds die from botulism – a disease caused by stagnant, deoxygenated water.

The heat also triggers a ladybug invasion, with their numbers so high that they are often squashed underfoot.

The heat on stuck trains on London Underground became so severe that people had to smash train windows.

The trial of kidnapper Donald Nielson, who was nicknamed the Black Panther and charged with the murder of a 17-year-old woman, was halted at Oxford Crown Court as a woman in the public gallery made chaos.

However, a week after Mr Howell was appointed at the end of August as drought minister, the rain has finally arrived and the driest and hottest days of Britain’s most famous summer are finally over. . It was Britain’s worst drought in 250 years.

The hot weather of the past few weeks has brought back memories of the summer of 1976 for many Britons.

On Twitter, one person wrote: ‘I am a survivor of the summer of 1976. What a time to be alive. It’s great. I am 15 years old and no government as I remember has guided me in my manners. ‘

Another said: ‘I don’t know how many of us got through the summer of 1976 unscathed. We don’t have social media to try to banish our lives. ‘

A third wrote: ‘A couple of hot days in July and they’re trying to pretend the weather isn’t normal somehow. Does anyone remember the summer of 1976, when we had the same temperature as we are now, except it was over two months rather than the usual week or two? This is *not* an emergency! ‘

Their comments come as Downing Street calls its second Cobra meeting of the week on a heatwave, with temperatures set to soar to 39C (102F) from Monday.

Cabinet Office Secretary Kit Malthouse chaired the meeting of the Cobra civil contingency committee (Cabinet Meeting Room), just three days after the first crisis meeting was held on Monday.

Rivers are at 30 per cent above normal, farmers are using a third more water and Britons are told to take shorter showers after the lowest rainfall in more than a quarter of a quarter the past century in parts of the UK.

Farmers today warned of a ‘significant challenge’ due to extremely dry weather as they try to keep crops well-watered in the face of soaring fuel, electricity and fertilizer costs in A heat wave is raging in the UK.

East Anglia has been particularly arid this summer after it saw only two-thirds of its normal rainfall in the first half of 2022, making it the region’s driest six-month period since 1996 and the second driest. 11 since the record began in 1836.