Who had the better heatwave – 1976 or 2018?
How did the citizens of the mythical summer of ’76 cope compared with today, asks
Just as all geographical areas must be measured in units that correspond to “the size of Wales”, so all British heatwaves must be matched against the mythical “summer of 1976”. The year of Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan’s governments, of Concorde and the Cod War, was also the hottest in the UK since records began. Rainless days multiplied and temperatures climbed, finally reaching a pitiless 96.6F (35.9C) – in Cheltenham, since you ask – which makes the high-20s thermometer readings of the past week seem positively piffling.
But how do the past and present heatwaves compare otherwise?
Water works
Our response to the merest glimmer of sunshine these days is to glug down a shop-bought bottle of mineral water. We gleefully jump into the shower the moment things get humid. The greatest hardship of a 21st-century heatwave is – God forbid – a hosepipe ban.
If you had bought water from a shop 42 years ago, everyone would have thought you were mad.
Water came from a tap, and in 1976 it became so scarce, household mains supplies were briefly cut off in Yorkshire, East
Anglia and Plymouth, and standpipes erected in the streets. Brits were encouraged to use washing-up suds to flush their loos and to “bath with a friend”. A shower was a forked rubber device plugged on to the bath taps, for the sole purpose of hair washing. Oh yes, it was different in the Seventies.
Easy breezy
Forget the app-operated Dyson Pure Cool Tower with its real-time air quality sensors and £499.99 price tag – I have a dim memory from 1976 of a clunky Panasonic fan, which turned its face as slowly as a Galapagos tortoise, and seemed the very height of sophistication. And forget your airy cotton frocks and shirts. My wife was a bridesmaid at her cousin’s wedding in 1976 and the photographs show a riot of suffocating velvet and sweat-trapping taffeta. Pity the poor youths of 1976, who just missed out on the bare-feet-andcheesecloth hippy vibe, and found themselves encased in the leather and denim of punk. Linen – what’s that?
Bottoms up
Keeping hydrated in the 1976 heatwave was no fun. There was no craft beer or Aperol Spritz on tap, and cocktails were an effete affectation of the upper classes and foreigners. Wine was looked upon with suspicion, as was drinking at home. Lest we forget, pubs closed at 11pm and were shut for most of Sunday, and the height of takeout sophistication (how quaint the term “off-licence” sounds now) was the Watney’s Party Seven or a can of Top Deck shandy. Bleurgh.
Hot cuisine
There were no Pret a Manger salads, and no food trucks in the Seventies: just Findus crispy pancakes and boil-in-the-bag fish. For most people outside the major metropolises, the options for eating out went: chip shop, Chinese, Indian, Berni Steakhouse (although the UK’s first McDonald’s had opened to challenge the grim ranks of Wimpy Bars in 1974). It’s a wonder a whole swathe of the population didn’t die of combined heart disease and heatstroke.
Nick Curtis
Survival techniques
There was no Netflix or streaming in 1976, just three TV channels – BBC One, BBC Two and ITV – and they shut down at night. But if you think those shared baths and long, sleepless nights might have resulted in a baby boom nine months down the line, think again: 1976 and 1977 were the first years since the Second World War when births plummeted to a level below the number of deaths in England and Wales. Clearly it was just too darn hot.
Plus ça change…
Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon separated in 1976 – the Cheryl and Liam Payne of their day. Björn Borg and Chris Evert dominated Wimbledon, like Roger Federer and Serena Williams today. In 2018, we flinch at the thought of so-called Islamic State: back then it was the IRA.
Politically, 1976 was a year of minority governments, leadership crises, party infighting and increased borrowing. Big Ben stopped bonging for nine months. Those who believe history repeats itself might also like to note that the summer of 1976 was the harbinger of the Winter of Discontent in 1978. Long live summer… Things have only got better. Shared bath anyone?