Paul Fitzpatrick: October 2023

They say the only certainties in life are ‘death & taxes’ but I think we can safely add a third option – whenever we have a decent spell of warm weather in this country there’s a cast iron guarantee that the summer of 1976 will be mentioned.

For those from the West of Scotland who remember, it was a freakishly glorious time.
Waking up day after day in utter disbelief to cloudless blue skies and temperatures of 30C upwards, it was almost as if God had got his west coasts mixed up.

I don’t think the natives of Glasgow have ever looked as naturally healthy as they did that summer, boosted by lashings of vitamin D and extended periods of outdoor living.

I remember it well.

I was 17 and had just got my first car, an emerald green, Mark 3 Cortina.
There were plenty of day trips to Loch Lomond and Largs that summer with the car-windows rolled down, the stereo booming and the Foster Grants struggling to do their job.

This was a time before fancy rattan garden-furniture, Weber bbq’s and Bluetooth speakers where you’d simply lie on a towel in the back garden, stereo speakers perched precariously on the window ledge blaring out Frampton Comes Alive, soaking up the rays whilst listening out for the chimes of the ice-cream van.

As a nation we just weren’t used to this type of sustained heat… reservoirs dried up, roads melted, firefighters ran out of water and swarms of ladybirds terrorised the public.
And if that wasn’t enough, Irn Bru was selling out fast and the price of a single tomato rose to 45p – the equivalent of £3.20 today.

Living in Scotland we were used to longer days in the summer months but for a few weeks in 76 it never seemed to get dark as we enjoyed all-day sunshine and a galaxy of heavenly stars illuminating the evening sky.

Understandably, the freakish weather tends to dominate any memories of 76 but culturally it was also a pretty good year.

It was bookended by two of my favourite albums – Bowie’s Station to Station and Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life and sandwiched in-between were several personal favourites….
Boz Scaggs – Silk Degrees; Steely Dan – The Royal Scam and Marvin Gaye’s – I Want You.

Cinema wise I remember being blown away by Stallone’s ‘Rocky‘ and Clint’s ‘The Outlaw Josey Wales‘ and I recall taking a date to see Carrie, which on reflection wasn’t the best destination for a romantic rendezvous.

Between the Death-Valley type weather and my new found mobility I didn’t spend much time indoors, but despite the fact there were only three channels on offer back then, I remember there was some great television on offer.

The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin first aired in 76, as did the Python offshoot Ripping Yarns whilst a few American imports – Starsky & Hutch, M*A*S*H and The Rockford Files became essential viewing.

76 will always be remembered for the weather of course but the summer had already got off to a great start with two memorable events in Glasgow.

First there was an open-air concert at Parkhead headlined by *The Who, ably supported by The Sensational Alex Harvey Band and the outstanding Little Feat, and then a matter of days later the city was awash with German and French football fans mingling with local punters as the European Cup final between Bayern Munich and St Etienne took place at Hampden Park.

I also remember that the peak of the heatwave coincided with the Wimbledon championships which saw a twenty-year-old Swede with ice in his veins win his first Wimbledon title on a sun-baked centre court, defeating fans favourite Ilie Nastase.
It was so hot that the stuffy All England Club even allowed umpires to remove their jackets that fortnight.

In many ways 1976 was the end of a musical era. Bands like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols were already gathering steam and by 1977 the charts were awash with Punk bands who with a couple of exceptions made Status Quo look like the Mahavishnu Orchestra.
Once the punk fad was over, ‘Disco’, commercialised by the success of Saturday Night Fever became the dominant force. This led every man and his dog (and Rod Stewart) to incorporate a ‘four on the floor’ disco beat until the New Romantics came along, and the less said about them the better.

As always, music helps to jog the memory so I started to compile a 76 playlist and on completion I wondered how it was possible to have Led Zeppelin, the Starlight Vocal Band, Donna Summer and the theme from Rocky on the same mixtape.

Then again, things were always pretty eclectic in the 70s, for example, during the heatwave the number one single in the UK was The Wurzels “Combine Harvester”….. excessive heat can do that to people!

_{* Links below for two great articles on Who playing live in 76, by Alan Fairley and Mark Arbuckle…
https://onceuponatimeinthe70s.com/2021/02/24/a-packed-lunch-for-a-vampire-and-dennis-nielsens-freezer-a-who-odyssey/
https://onceuponatimeinthe70s.com/2021/05/21/the-tale-of-two-keiths-and-the-no-64-bus/}