The sizzling summer of 1976 when the UK basked in glorious sunshine

Since the Met Office started naming storms this winter, we’ve been slammed by eight. It started with Abigail on November 12 and we’ve suffered right through to last week’s Henry.

We’re all hankering after a little sunshine. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, on the 40th anniversary, we got another summer like 1976? What a different world it was back then…

The summer of ’76 is the glorious, sun-kissed summer that’s sun-baked into the memories of millions.

Forget a cracking couple of days to savour or a wonderful week to look back on with a smile.

This was a stunner, not so much a taste of the Mediterranean as a feast.

It started in the middle of June and just kept going and going. By June 23 it was so established across the UK there followed 15 consecutive days when the temperature reached 32C or 90F.

Glasgow was having its driest summer and Aberdeen its hottest since the 1860s. At first it was simply glorious, with Scots flocking to the coast or their local parks and ice cream factories and breweries cranking up production to cope with unprecedented demand.

There was no chance of the usual rain delays at that year’s Wimbledon.

Instead, 400 sweat-soaked spectators had to be treated for sunstroke and similar ailments in a single day.

And, breaking with 100 years of stuffy tradition, the umpires were allowed to take their jackets off as temperatures soared higher and higher.

House of Commons bar staff, though, were told they must keep them on. They walked out in protest.

Stay-at-home holidaymakers never had it so good with seaside resorts like Blackpool hanging out “No Vacancy” signs and even the beach donkeys having to be kept in the shade.

But it wasn’t all good.

Snowploughs had to take to the A9 between Perth and Inverness – to spray sand on to the melting tar. Tinder-dry woodland was just one stray match away from disaster and forests across the country were ravaged by fire.

More than 300 residents of a New Forest old folk’s home were evacuated as a blaze raced towards it at 40mph.

Farmers’ fields were so parched that crops failed, with the spectre of food shortages raised in parliament.

Farmers weren’t the only ones who felt they were in the wrong line of work – an Ayrshire factory making waterproof sportswear closed due to total lack of demand.

And the biggest impact was very much water. Or the lack of it in what became known as The Great Drought.

Rivers and reservoirs dried up and drought restrictions were imposed across the country, especially in England.

In the worst-hit areas standpipes were set up and “You are entering a drought area” signs were put up.

The government even appointed a Drought Minister.

Then, ironically, just as workers who had peered enviously out at the great weather got set to enjoy it on the August Bank Holiday weekend, the heavens opened and the summer of ’76 was over.