Yes, it's been dangerously hot - but this week doesn't compare to the summer of 1976
manchestereveningnews.co.ukTwo things were inescapable in the long hot summer of 1976 - the energy-sapping heat and that twee Number One by Elton John and Kiki Dee - Don't Go Breaking My Heart - blaring from every radio.
I was 17, and prone to four-hour football matches down the park - standing over an allotment tap for water to cascade down my throat - no plastic bottles of Evian and the like then.
I remember the grime of labouring in a hot factory and the perfume of honeysuckle on summer nights spent idling with mates and girls, sneaking an under-age pint or two of thirst-quenching Midlands bitter, or cold but awful Harp lager.
But while I basked with the rest of the country in an atypical British six months, a national crisis developed. A minister for drought had to be appointed, and, as reservoirs dried out, gardeners were banned from using hosepipes.
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