A sunshiny view up my back passage. [click to embiggen]
"Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language." - Henry James
It has been bloody hot these past few days - the hottest ever start to Wimbledon Fortnight, apparently - with a peak yesterday of 34.7C/94.4F in St James' Park. Not sure how dear Henry would have felt about sitting in some glorious British country garden if he had been as bathed in sweat as we've been...
Needless to say, anything defined as a "heatwave" here in the UK, particularly this early in the year, immediately brings nostalgic memories of that Long Hot Summer of 1976! That was the glorious year (for me in particular, turning "teenage", but also for a generation of kids) that the whole of the school summer holidays (in fact all of June, July and August) was non-stop sunshine, with parks, outdoor lidos, beaches and any other swimming spots packed to the brim, scantily-clad people everywhere, water rationing, stand-pipes in the streets, a "plague" of ladybirds, and...
...it was the year of Disco, the Raleigh Chopper bike, I, Claudius, the first Space Shuttle, Dancing Queen, Demis Roussos, Pol Pot, the "Cod War", photos from Mars, Jimmy Carter, Brotherhood of Man, Nadia Comaneci, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, John Curry, Jim Callaghan, The Muppet Show, Wings, Patty Hearst, Emperor Bokassa, 10CC, Concorde, the "Son of Sam", The Wurzels, Taxi Driver, Peter Frampton, Punk, The New Avengers, Tina Charles, Niki Lauda, The Omen, James Hunt, Jeremy Thorpe, Soweto riots, the IRA and the US Bicentennial. It was also the year that Benedict Cumberbatch, Emma Bunton, "H" from Steps, Ryan Reynolds, Apple, Colin Farrell, Ellen MacArthur, The Body Shop, Stephen Gately, the National Theatre, Anna Friel, the CN Tower, Keeley Hawes, Cillian Murphy, Reese Witherspoon, Sean Maguire, Martine McCutcheon, Rob James-Collier, the InterCity 125, the Ford Fiesta and the Seychelles were all born; and the year Rosalind Russell, Sal Mineo, Sir Benjamin Britten, Dame Edith Evans, Busby Berkeley, Dame Agatha Christie, Sid James, Fritz Lang, Dame Sybil Thorndike, Florence Ballard, Sir Mortimer Wheeler, Tom Driberg, Carol Reed, Margaret Leighton, Man Ray, Howard Hughes, Lily Pons, Ulrike Meinhof, Alastair Sim, Paul Robeson, Luchino Visconti, Sir Stanley Baker, Percy Faith, Chairman Mao, LS Lowry, Field Marshal Montgomery and South Vietnam all died.
In the headlines in early July 1976? 102 hostages on a plane hijacked by terrorists and diverted to Entebbe in Uganda were dramatically freed in a daring Israeli rescue mission; multiple murderer Donald Neilson, known as the "Black Panther" was sentenced to life imprisonment; and of course the tabloids were full of heatwave-related screaming headlines ("Hotter than Honolulu!", "Phewnominal!", "PHEW! WHAT A SCORCHER!", and so on). In our cinemas: The Outlaw Josey Wales; Bugsy Malone; Aces High. On telly: The Bionic Woman, Starsky and Hutch and Mike Yarwood in Persons.
And in our charts this week 49 years ago? Embedded at the top was The Real Thing and You To Me Are Everything, and making up the rest of the Top Ten were an assortment of artists including the aforementioned Wurzels, and the aforementioned Wings, Rod Stewart [yup, the star of Glastonbury 2025's "Legends" slot has been going that long...], Candi Staton, Bryan Ferry, Thin Lizzy, Gallagher and Lyle, The Shangri-Las(!) and Our Kid. However, just arrived in the lower echelons of the chart was the song that would sweep away everything before it, staying at the top for six weeks - and become forever associated with that legendary, happy summer!
An absolute classic!
Ah, memories...