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Wednesday 20 April 2016

Heat Wave 1976



From the YouTube info.

Various shots of people walking around in T-shirts and shorts during the hot summer weather of the 1976 heat wave. The cameraman seems to focus on women.

Forty years ago but how well I remember it. Rot box cars, crappy beer and idiot politics. Happy days.

10 comments:

Sam Vega said...

Yes, my second year at university, and the women did indeed wear cheesecloth tops and denim hotpants. Even at 19 years old, though, I don't think I ever paid them such assiduous and focused attention. I wonder, given the technology involved in those days, where he was filming from and why none of them seemed to acknowledge his attentions. Presumably it would be far easier today with mobile phones, but I imagine the main difference is that being caught in possession of such footage would probably mean ten years on the sex offenders register.

Compare with that earlier footage you have posted, and the '70s don't look very nice, do they? No capering children, no exaggerated gallantry, no smiles. Just a pervert lurking on the hot dusty streets. Grim.

Scrobs. said...

That was also the year I started gardening in earnest, Younger Daught was born, and I was made redundant at Christmas...

A Morris Marina could do nearly 90mph too!

wiggiatlarge said...

I had just moved house and was preparing a base in the garden for a building, the concrete was delivered on the hottest day of that year and to this day the race against time to get it laid before it became an immovable mountain in the drive lives with me, I nearly died barrowing that lot.
And yet that hot spell did not start till well into June

Sackerson said...

Staying indoors all day drinking tea to avoid the sunshine. Sutton Park caught fire. Dennis Howells was appointed Minister for Drought, then shortly afterwards Minister for Floods.

wiggiatlarge said...

Minister for Drought, then shortly afterwards Minister for Floods.
And then Minister for Snow, a true man for all seasons was Dennis.

Another anecdote relating to the film above, I was in Shepherds Bush, London driving a Ford Zodiac, ah the style, but was mesmerised by a beautiful girl with extremely long legs and the shortest of mini skirts, so fixed was I on this vision that I totally failed to see a Mini Cooper turning right in front of me and I piled into the back destroying the drivers pride and joy, he stood in the road repeating the words "look what you have done", I had no answer !

Demetrius said...

Come the holiday, the camping gear was in the trailer and we were off to Europort via Hull. A quick bash down the autobahn and we were up an Alp to cool down. After a while it was off to St. Tropez, where it was milder than Barnsley and with a pleasant sea breeze.

A K Haart said...

Sam - the seventies was a good decade for us but pretty crappy otherwise. What the period taught me was how social and political crappiness are ignored when life is personally benign.

Scrobs - my father-in-law had a Morris Marina but there was no chance of him doing ninety in it. He went to a lot of trouble trying to keep the rust at bay though.

Sackers - I was roped into water supply problems at the time, mains flushing and so on. We thought Denis was a bit of a joke but he soon brought an end to the drought.

Wiggia - they were distracting weren't they? I wonder if the girl ever knew what she'd done.

Demetrius - we nipped off to Walberswick where it seemed even hotter and the dog had diarrhoea.

Derek said...

10m:19sec - 10m:36sec The best!

Thud said...

I still dream of that summer.

A K Haart said...

Derek - crikey I need a lie down now.

Thud - so do I. Summer should be like that, not a few days of sunshine here and there.