Patrick’s pages

Sizzling summer of ’76 scorched on my memory

DON’T YOU just love this time of year, and the sounds of early summer?

Tinkling back-garden fountains, chimes from ice cream vans. The hypnotic drone of a distant lawnmower, the creak of a deckchair being opened after a long winter…

The world warming up and the crackle of ice being dropped in a glass and the fizz of a can being opened; the hum of bees around the flowerbed.

But for many of us who were around in 1976, the heartwarming joys of the British summer – often unreliable and snatched between showers – proved too much of a good thing. Flaming June turned into a 12-week swelter, transforming offices and shops into saunas and making it a hot hell for all of those who couldn’t simply slip into next