ABSTRACT
The British climate is generally accepted to be temperate and free from extremes on the whole. The national identity of Britain is defined by an obsession with the weather and that the British love to talk about it on a daily basis. This chapter focuses upon a number of contemporary accounts of the summer as it unfolded: from local newspapers to the DailyMirror; and from the diaries of Michael Palin to the letters of Kingsley Amis. The chapter analyses the research on partly involved poring over the daily weather forecasts from both the Times and the Daily Mirror for June, July and August of 1976, and it soon became clear from this that the answer to the Mirror's question was exactly the same as the one it gave back then: "NOT BY A LONG SWEAT". The chapter examines the socioeconomic context of the 1976 summer. The summer of 1976 can certainly be explained as an 'extreme weather event'.
