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Summer of 1976 (UK)

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'Use Water Sparingly' signs in the toilets at Junior School. Standpipes in the streets and the usual ban on using hose-pipes and car-washes.

But the best memory of the summer of 1976 I have is being out in Derwent Valley, Derbyshire, where the dams of Ladybower, Derwent and Howden were almost empty.

When these valleys were flooded they submerged two beautiful villages, Ashopton and Derwent and in 1976 I was able to see their ruins for the first time. To a seven year old, this was interesting stuff!

Gate Posts once belonging to Derwent Hall, an old pack-horse bridge still in situ and a pile of rubble that was once the tower of the local church. (Its spire once projected out of the rising flood waters but was eventually blown-up to stop sight-seers getting injured.)

The mud on the floor of the dam was cracked, it had been that hot. And it was a childhood summer that seemed to last forever.

Then there was the music, Abba, Frankie Valli, Chicago, Wings and, of course, the Brotherhood of Man!

Both my parents and all my grand-parents were alive and I recall that warmth that a seven year old simply took for granted, coming from a close, loving family.

1984 was also a good summer, but in all reality, it couldn't hold a candle to that of 1976.

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Do You Remember Summer of 1976 (UK)?

Do You Remember Summer of 1976 (UK)?

  • Anonymous user
    on
    I lived at the ashes farm, Derwent, the farm overlooks the small bay in which the church and the vicarage were situated, round the head of the bay was Derwent hall, a lot of the stone from these buildings was used to build houses in the Bamford area. I remember looking down the valley towards Bamford and not been able to see any water in the Ladybower dam, it had receded all the way down yo the Ashopton bridge(a57). The outlines is fields,roads, hedges all visible,, amazing!!
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I spent the Summer at my grandparents' home in Wimbledon, getting my first taste of England (grew up in Connecticut, USA). During the tennis matches, the queue would extend down their street, and people were passing out from the heat, left and right. My wonderful grandparents did not let the heat slow them down one bit - they took me all over London, and made trips to Stratford, Devon, and Salisbury. I remember a photo of a lanky teenage me standing in front of one of the menhirs of Stonehenge, when one could go right up to them.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    my last year at school we were allowed to removed our jackets and tie the summer semmed to go on and on we did have rain taht year the Saturday of the Lords test was rained of?
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I remember in Slough where I was brought up that as well as the hot summer of '76 we also has a dustman's strike.There was a pile of rubbish around a council house painters trailer opposite our house and somebody set fire to it.The heat and chemicals lifted the paint off my father's silver Ford Zephyr (the Ford silver fox paint was notourious for peeling but this just speeded up the process!)
  • Anonymous user
    on
    What a memory! 10 years old holidaying in dorset, watched my brothers passing out parade at Bovington camp, poor guys literally passing out from heatstroke. week before i went over the handlebars of my Chopper and badly cut my face and knocked a big chunk of my front tooth off!! never had it capped as i used to think it looked dead hard as a kid! lol. never been a summer like it since, i remember helping the farmer with the haybales that year too. if there was one time in my life i could return and revisit, it would be this one.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I'm a bit too young to have any vivid memories of the summer of '76 (I was only five then), but my mother has told me about how she saved the washing-up water to put on the garden, and how all the grass died! It was only a couple of summers ago (was it '05 or '06?) that we had a scorching July, and a lot of the grass went the same way as it did in '76, but unlike then, it didn't last, as it did nothing but rain when August got here!
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I was born in May 1976, and my mother still rejoices in the glorious nappy drying weather and the fact that I could be shoved outside in the back garden day after day. It seemed to stop me crying so much, apparently.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I was born in October 1976 and my mother still moans and complains about being heavily pregnant during this summer, apparently she was quite uncomfortable for most of it.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    oh 1976 what a year i was nine and all i remember apart from the heat was the ladybirds,one did actually bite my mum on the foot to which she was allergic and it ballooned up the size of a football not much fun as i had to do the shopping. And the melted tar that used to get in the way of playing marblesand not forgetting no one had any grass left just brown patches. that year the summer went on forever and forever in our memories.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    The main thing I remember about the summer of 76 is ladybirds a go go!! We were invaded by thousands of them! It was a very colourful summer.

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