As the nation basks in the sweltering temperatures, memories of the hottest summer of the last centrury come flooding back.

Nick Morrison takes a look at the summer of '76.

IT was the summer Bjorn Borg won Wimbledon for the first time; gymnast Nadia Comaneci was awarded the first maximum score in Olympic history on the asymmetric bars; Lester Piggott won the Derby for a record seventh time and David Wilkie won Britain's first men's Olympic swimming gold for 68 years.

The Wurzels, Demis Roussos, The Real Thing and Elton John and Kiki Dee reached number one; cinemagoers queued to see Rocky, The Omen and Taxi Driver, and The Duchess of Duke Street, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, the Multi-Coloured Swap Shop and The Muppet Show made their small screen debuts.

Israeli commandos rescued more than 100 hostages at Entebbe airport; David Steel was elected leader of the Liberal Party; Jimmy Carter won the Democratic nomination to run for president, and Chairman Mao died at the age of 82.

It was also the hottest, driest summer of the last century.

Reservoirs ran dry and their clay bottoms cracked in the heat; crops started to wilt in the fields; forest fires raged out of control, and gardeners watered their plants under the cover of darkness to beat the hosepipe ban.

As water levels ran dangerously low, water companies urged people to put bricks in their lavatory cisterns to conserve supplies, to brush their teeth from a mug rather than a running tap and to use their bath water to water their gardens. Sharing a bath become almost a patriotic duty, and a dirty car was a sign of a good citizen.

The previous year, 1975, had itself been the hottest for 28 years, but was to prove not a patch on the year that followed. May and early June had seen hot spells, with temperatures reaching 86F, or 30C, but these had been separated by cool periods, but from late June until late August, the weather was consistently dry, sunny and hot.

The cause was the jet stream, the high-speed wind which normally fixed on the Mediterranean, shifting north, keeping the Atlantic weather systems, which dictate Britain's changeable climate, at bay, and ensuring a ridge of high pressure remained fixed over these isles.

From June 22 to July 16, the temperature reached into the 80s Fahrenheit, 27C or more, somewhere in Britain every day, and the 15 days from June 23 to July 7 saw the mercury hit the 90s Fahrenheit, 32C, every day, including five days above 95F, 35C, a figure reached on only seven other occasions in the whole of the last century.

The highest temperatures recorded were 96.1F, 35.6C, at Southampton on June 28, equalling the all-time June record, and a July high of 96.6F, 35.9C, at Cheltenham.

"There was panic in many parts of the country, although we were not as badly affected as some," recalls Roy Kilborn, then a planner with Northumbrian Water, and still with the company, now as regulatory affairs manager, more than 25 years on. "In some places they tried to get rivers to flow in the opposite direction and there were a lot of hosepipe restrictions - it was a very difficult time."

The advent of Kielder reservoir, which holds 44 thousand million gallons and was opened in 1982, means any repeat of those water shortages is unlikely in the North-East, although Yorkshire Water was forced to bring in tankers full of water when its own supplies started to run dry in 1995.

While the heatwave was good news for ice cream sellers, deck chair attendants and barbecue manufacturers, before the advent of air conditioning, many office workers found the conditions almost unbearable. Ambulancemen were disciplined for taking off their ties and flights were cancelled after check-in staff refused to serve bad-tempered passengers.

Wildlife also suffered, as plants wilted in the heat and ponds dried up, leaving frogs and other pondlife high and dry.

"Everything just went yellow and trees and leaves were wilting," says Alan Davison, professor of environmental biology at Newcastle University. "It was a serious problem for wildlife that depended on ponds."

Some of the effects of the drought on wildlife were not felt for several years. A Royal Horticultural Society survey found that trees were dying off four or five years later, but had the roots of their demise in that long, hot summer.

"For trees that were relatively shallow rooted, their roots just got killed off," says Prof Davison. "There was growth in 1976, but the next season there was not enough new root growth to support the tree. Basically, a lot of trees that had been planted in the previous ten years suddenly started to die."

Temperatures yesterday hit their highest so far this year, 88F, 30.7C, and possibly reaching 90F, 32C, today, putting Britain on a par with the Costa del Sol and warmer than the south of France. Winds from the North Sea meant the North-East was cooler than most of the rest of the country.

But although the last week has seen consistently high temperatures, it is a long way from the heatwave of 1976, says forecaster Paul Knightley, of the PA Weather Centre.

"It has been hot the last few days, but the early part of July was not especially hot," he says. "Temperatures now are above average, but not exceptional, and the wind has been in the wrong direction for the North-East."

The forecast is for the hot weather to continue for the next few days, before thunderstorms and showers arrive towards the end of the week, with torrential downpours likely. Over the weekend it is expected to turn warm again, with the North-East feeling the benefit this time, as the wind changes direction.

Back in 1976, towards the end of August the weather was the only story in town as far as the nightly news was concerned, with tales of roads melting, guardsmen fainting and rivers running dry. Millions of people in the west of England and Wales were left without water for much of the day.

As each day went by with still no sign of rain, the Government finally recognised it had a crisis on its hands and appointed Sports Minister Denis Howell as the man for the job, with emergency powers to conserve water. Inevitably he was dubbed the Minister for Drought, but maybe the Minister for Rain would have been more appropriate - days later, the heavens opened and the drought was over. The jet stream chose August Bank Holiday to finally move away after three months, and thunderstorms moved in from the continent. When rain stopped play at Lords, the crowd cheered.