The summer of ’76 revisited

Arts Entertainments

June 25, 1976 was a bad day to travel on the Bakerloo Line of the London Underground between Finchley Road and Baker Street. A signal failure not only made what was normally an eight-minute drive take an hour and a half, but unluckily, it turned out to be one of the hottest days of the hottest summer for some three hundred years.

Some passengers inevitably pretended. Others desperately sought to ease their discomfort by stripping down to their underwear. A man, shirtless and possessed by a physique that was the object of much admiration and distraction among those with whom he was trapped, made the unilateral decision to propel himself Tarzan out of the carriage windows, clutching two straps suspended from the ceiling as his feet pounded. the glass, finally managing to provide much-appreciated ventilation for the benefit of his long-suffering fellow travelers.

In other parts of the UK, the heatwave had an equally profound effect on those it had affected, although the solutions were not always as drastic. Hundreds of people flocked to the Serpentine in London’s Hyde Park and turned it into a veritable lido, while others sought similar solace in the Trafalgar Square fountain. Mothers queued with buckets at public street fountains as the water supply became increasingly scarce, with reservoirs and even rivers drying up. The government officially appointed a drought minister, a member of parliament called for an investigation into the paltry portions of ice cream allegedly served by exploitative vendors, and a doctor memorably advised that adults should hydrate themselves with a nice pint of cold beer.

As if all this wasn’t surreal enough, huge swarms of seven-spot ladybugs… coccinella septempuncta to the anoraks – they made their way hungrily inland, all 24 billion of them if official estimates were to be believed, sustaining themselves on human sweat and biting any who resisted.

The long, hot summer of 1976 has become the stuff of legend ever since. We have had warmer days, but we have never experienced a heat wave as long and unrelenting as the one we had in that extraordinary year.

For those old enough to look back fondly, whether it’s music, the big screen, or whatever other aspect of popular culture we cling to as we reminisce, it’s that big heat wave that invariably serves as the backdrop. for all our memories.

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