PHEW... What a scorcher! As the South sweltered in the glorious sunshine at the weekend, it brought back memories of 40 years ago when the city sizzled in record-breaking temperatures.

The long hot summer of 1976, which heralded one of the hottest summers of all time, was in a league of its own but the latest heatwave has led bookies to slash the odds that 2016 will be the hottest year on record.

While the record for the highest individual temperature has been broken twice since, once in 1990 and again in 2003 when the mercury reached 38.5C (101.3F) at Brogdale in Kent, nothing has matched 1976 for sheer persistence of very high temperatures.

Between the 22nd June and the 16th July, 1976 the temperature reached well above 80F every day.

This is not the best of it though, because the heat was at its most intense between 23rd June and the 7th July when the temperature topped 90F every day somewhere in England.

The sweltering temperatures in 1976 dried up water reserves and left parts of the area tinder-dry as the South’s landscape took a fearful beating as hundreds of acres went up in flames.

While Echo canteen staff fried eggs on scorching manhole covers in the centre of the city, overworked Hampshire fire crews were dealing with an average of 175 incidents a day – and as if it wasn’t hot enough outside, an arsonist started 14 fires at Southampton General Hospital.

As the drought intensified, ladybirds thrived, water authority officials stalked gardens to check owners using illicit hoses, beer manufacture was threatened and there were endless queues for ice creams.

The summer was followed by one of the wettest autumns on record when the rains finally arrived in early October.