How did we ever survive in 1976!
ARE we heading for another summer of drought, just like 1976 (Mail)? Apart from the one day that was the hottest on record, the recent spell just scraped into the three-day qualification period for it to be classed as a heatwave. In comparison, 1976 had two months of hot days and nights. The countryside and all the people were golden brown. There was no government advice that the sun was hot and if you didn’t drink you could get thirsty. I guess people figured that out for themselves. I had just returned from Australia and Britain looked indistinguishable from sunburnt Oz, minus the kangaroos.
BILL NAYLOR, Wilsford, Lincs. I HAD a wry smile when reading Dominic Sandbrook’s article about the drought of 1976 (Mail). We returned from Riyadh that summer to find standpipes in the street. Imagine our surprise having just left Saudi Arabia’s summer temperatures well above 40c (104f) and no shortage of water. I can’t see any change in our attitude towards water storage and distribution, despite frequent winter floods.
M. HODGSON, Harrogate, N. Yorks. WHY did the BBC compare a hot couple of days with the 1976 heatwave that went on for months? With all the hoo-haa it greeted high temperatures, goodness knows what it would have made of 1976’s plague of ladybirds.
P. WILSON, Chester. I WELL remember the fires in Dorset in 1976. Dominic Sandbrook mentions tankers from the Milk Marketing Board being used. My father ran the transport side of the oil distribution company Minster Fuels, based at West Moors, close to the Ferndown fire. He loaned tankers that were cleaned to transport water for the fire-fighting effort.
PENNY MILLS, West Moors, Dorset. MY MOTHER ran the Boat Inn at Redbrook, Monmouthshire, on the banks of the river Wye in 1976.
I was so upset to see dead salmon floating down the river.
LYNDIE LEVENTON, Wolverton, Hants. DURING the hot summer of 1976, I was driving home one late afternoon with the air con on full blast.
I was enjoying the cool breeze when suddenly the engine seized. I rang the RAC and waited 45 minutes for a breakdown truck to arrive. The patrolman turned my car key and the engine started first time. He explained I had overheated the air con and could have started the car myself after a short rest. He’d had a lot of call-outs that day for that issue.
JEFF RUSH, Chandlers Cross, Herts. WORST drought since 1976? Why not apply the same solution and appoint a Minister of Drought. Guaranteed rainfall within days.
E. BURKE, Cardiff. IF OUR hot weather is due to global warming, what was the cause in 1976 — a hole in the ozone layer? CYRIL ALLEN, Shillingstone, Dorset.