Workers jumped into Trafalgar Square fountains, tube passengers smashed windows, and motorists faced massive tailbacks as the UK sweltered through record-breaking heat on 26 June 1976. The Guardian reported that temperatures reached 91F (32.2C) in London, just shy of the capital's all-time high set in 1940.
Office workers cool off in fountains
Office workers stripped off and plunged into the fountains at Trafalgar Square, while more sedate businessmen retained their bowlers and brollies while bathing their tired feet. The scene captured the extremes of a nation unaccustomed to such heat.
Tube chaos on Bakerloo line
Hundreds of commuters sweltered for 90 minutes when a tube train became stranded in a tunnel after a signal failure between Swiss Cottage and St John's Wood. Passengers overcome by heat smashed windows and stripped to the waist. When the train finally arrived at Baker Street after what should have been an eight-minute journey, no one needed hospital treatment. An inquiry was held.
Gillian Linscott, reporting from the scene, described a blond sun-tanned giant swinging from two straps to shatter glass with his boots. She noted that the first window shattering came approximately 50 minutes after the train halted, following a fainting fit. "With the window the normality shattered too. This was a crisis," she wrote.
Roads and breakdowns
The AA and RAC reported a flood of calls from motorists whose cars had overheated. The M4 was blocked from Heston to Chiswick by broken-down vehicles, with tailbacks of three miles in both directions. The temperature at the AA station near Gallows Corner, Romford, Essex, reached 101F, and it was 99.7F at Hatfield, Hertfordshire. However, the London Weather Centre cautioned that some readings were taken in direct sunlight and were misleading.
North also sizzles
The North shared the heat: Leeds had its hottest day of the year at 90F, and ambulance men were called to more than 40 fainting cases. Thursday night was the warmest in London for 29 years, with a temperature of 70F. The London Weather Centre forecast continued sunshine with an increasing risk of thunderstorms.
Tower Bridge contingency
Contingency plans were drawn up for Tower Bridge in case heat expansion damaged the structure. The 82-year-old bridge had been closed once before during a heatwave when the two sides expanded so much they could not be closed.
