Win a Kindle Paperwhite worth over £100 plus a copy of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep **NOW CLOSED**

I actually don't really remember the heat (it could be because we were living in the far north of Scotland so it was hot but not tropical). I do however, remember the ladybirds - they were everywhere. You couldn't open a window without the house being invaded and we were finding them for months after the summer.

I was working in Management for Mothercare in 1976 and remember lots of customers (pregnant) were very hot and bothered. The children were particularly fractious, and paddling pools/parasols had sold out so tempers were rather short!

I was a teenager in 1976 & remember my Dad, who was an avid gardener, struggling to keep his vegetables alive in his vegetable plot. With a drought & hose pipe ban he used to bail the bath out with buckets and water his crops with the used bathwater! I also remember huge crevices in the lawn and garden.

Having had my second daughter in February we all had the greatest of times during the summer enjoying the warm weather and the long sunny days which I will never forget. I had a cream cheesecloth top with embroidery and my memory tells me that I wore it nearly every day as I felt it summed up the whole Summer. Didn't worry that the garden was all brown and the lawn had disappeared. I used to fill the paddling pool up with about 2 inches of water and we used to be in the garden all day late into the evening such happy carefree times.

I sat my O levels in the summer of 1976. The school gym was used as the exam hall and it was unbearably hot and stuffy.

I remember going on holiday to Bournemouth that year with my friend. It was the first holiday without my parents.

I remember going on a lovely family holiday to Cornwall.One of the best family holidays from my childhood.

Yes, I remember parched brown, dry grass for weeks on end. I remember Green Goddess army trucks bringing water supplies. I remember the reservoir being almost dried up. Lots of fires on the Army firing ranges. The snakes coming down from the ranges to get to the water in the Basingstoke canal. Hosepipe bans and trying to fill the paddling pool up without a hosepipe. Children running after the ice-cream van and the ice cream melting before they got back home with it. Swimming in rivers and outdoor lidos just to get cool.

It was the year I went to college. That summer we travelled to Sweden by sea and there was an epidemic of ladybirds which covered the ship.

I vividly remember having a standpipe at the bottom of our drive, ready for the water to be turned off and rationed, the news reporters standing by cracked heat baked empty reservoirs, and on our local tv news station an 'rain dance' being done. Burnt shoulders, long hot days never to be forgotten.

Being pregnant and the ladybird invasion. Oh the ladybirds!

Everything was brown, the grass eventually disappearing. No wonder brown was the favoured colour of the Seventies! Our second daughter was 9 months old and remained under the pram sun canopy for the whole of the summer. I spent a good deal of time standing in the children's paddling pool.

Nothing!

I was 16 at the time and we all went to visit a reservoir were the water level had droped and you could see the church steeple sticking up out of the water it was in yorkshire some were but i can not remember the name

Had just finished school & was applying for jobs that summer. My bedroom was in the attic, freezing during the winter & roasting in the summer. Lying in a sweltering bedroom, suffering from sunburn with the bedclothes thrown off, thinking to myself I could never cope in a warm country.

I remember it well! It was so hot and we used to eat outside every day which me and my brother loved. We went to the beach every day that summer as we weren't allowed a paddling pool because of the hosepipe ban.

Yes I was pregnant with my eldest son,remember the hose pipe bans and not having any water left on the shelves at the supermarket!

My memory of a hot summer of 1976 , my daughter was just over a year old , and seemed to cry constantly because of the heat , so we stayed indoors most of the time, I was so resentful as I have always been a sun worshipper , Time for me to grow up quick and put my daughter first.

Living in a semi- in south Wales at the time, desperately trying to keep our first attempt at a veg garden going. Our bathwater was siphoned (ugh) down into into a large container of some sort & stored...neighbours (non-gardeners) borrowed our hosepipe & gave us their bathwater too.
Great salady stuff & later on never-repeated cabbages the size of footballs!!

Can just recall walking to/from Primary school and it was scorching! Always got an ice lolly or ice cream in the afternoon though which was nice. Also remember that we had a tall stand fan in the home which just blew the hot air around the room.

Can't remember it at all (must be my age)

melting tar on the paths and ladybird plague!

Secondary school exams in uncomfortable heat, then hanging around with friends all summer wearing Bay City Rollers gear lol

We holidayed with three children on the west coast of Scotland in a caravan. At night we could either have all the windows open and be plagued with biting midges or have them all closed and cook. We left the van in place and drove many miles to a big town, where I bought yards and yards of muslin and rolls of Sellotape and drove back. I cut muslin screens for the windows and sellotaped them in place with the windows wide open. Whenever we left the van, we had to unstick the muslin to fasten the windows closed and keep out any passing thieves, then open them and restick it the moment we got back.

I remember going to the local open swimming pool and it was full of ladybirds, there was a plague of them