TOBY YOUNG: They said 1976 was the hottest summer for 350 years

TOBY YOUNG: They said 1976 was the hottest summer for 350 years, so what did we do? We went out to play

For me, the extraordinary summer of ’76 holds some of my happiest childhood memories. I was a healthy 13-year-old boy living in North London who spent as much time as I could playing outside with my friends.

According to experts at the time, it was the hottest summer in the British Isles for 350 years.

It certainly wasn’t an excuse to cancel sports day and stay inside. Rather, the unrelenting good weather was just a stroke of good fortune and we were determined to make the best of it.

Summer of 1976 was the hottest summer in the British Isles for 350 years

I kept a diary back then and flicking through its pages brings it all flooding back. Far from avoiding danger, my friends and I sought it out wherever we could.

‘In the morning I phoned up Edward to see if he could come skateboarding because he’s just bought one from Hamleys,’ I wrote on June 19. ‘We play a game called Death Race 2000 where you have to push each other off.’

One time that summer I went boarding barefoot and cut my big toe so badly I needed stitches. Luckily, we were able to get a face-to-face meeting with our local GP straight away and he stitched up the toe on the spot. Those were the days.

Another favourite pastime was raiding the local allotments to pick berries, which were abundant in the hot weather. On July 7, I wrote: ‘We hit the jackpot of gooseberries and found millions.’

Every day after school I would either go swimming at Park Road Pools in Hornsey, kick a football around with my mates in Highgate Woods or play cricket in one of the streets nearby. By the end of the summer we were all nut brown. I don’t think we bothered with suncream.

I did stay inside occasionally during that summer, but it was either to make Airfix models or to watch the Olympics

You can tell it was a more innocent era because I was doing a paper round, earning £2 a week for working half-an-hour a day from Monday to Friday. Then again, £2 was nothing to sniff at. Curly Wurlys were only 5p and you could get five rhubarb and custards for two-and-a-half pence.

I did stay inside occasionally during that summer, but it was either to make Airfix models – a Scammell Tank Transporter was a favourite – or to watch the Olympics.

On July 21, I wrote: ‘We are not doing well in the Olympics, but one Romanian gymnast of 14 called Nadia is very good and she keeps on getting 10 out of 10.’

AS to cooling off, I took a practical, no-nonsense approach: ‘Just before I went to bed I had a cold shower because it was 104 today,’ I wrote on June 25.

Cold showers, Airfix models and paper rounds – it was a different, less fearful world. Thirteen-year-olds were left to their own devices, allowed to run wild in the local woods and allotments provided we were home in time for tea. I can’t help feeling it helped prepare us for the slings and arrows of later life. The least we can do is give today’s kids the same freedom in the coming days and weeks.

Source: Read Full Article