In Pictures: Heatwave of 1976
The record-breaking summer of 1976 has become ingrained in British social history and scorched in our collective memory.
On 23 June, the sun began to blaze down, heralding a heatwave which would last for 10 sweltering weeks. Temperatures peaked at 36 degrees Centigrade (97 Fahrenheit in old money).
Here’s what Britain looked like back in that summer.
Normally holding 3,500 million gallons, Staines Reservoirs dropped down to 17 million gallons amid the heatwave
Denis Howell was appointed Drought Minister to help manage the water crisis
Residents across the country had to fill buckets from water standpipes in the street
A model was photographed tanning herself in the dried-up basin of Pitsford Reservoir, Northamptonshire
Drought-hit farmland at Broad Oak in Kent during August 1976
The average maximum daily temperature in June 1976 was 19.9C
The River Thames at Teddington after Thames Water Authority back-pumped water at Molesey Weir
Household supplies in Newport, Wales, were cut for 12 hours a day in a bid to preserve the desperately low stocks
What memories do you have of the Summer of ’76?
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