UK’s hottest June: ‘The population should have been prepared for this’ 

London, United Kingdom – “At midnight yesterday, the temperature in my home was 31 degrees, which I could not control,” said Bijal Shah, a pharmacist who has spent the past fortnight trying and failing to buy a portable air conditioning unit or even an industrial fan to cool his five-month-old grandson who is unwell.

Some cooling items have waits of two to three weeks for delivery, a real challenge for families like his who are caring for someone vulnerable.

It is a small but telling detail in a week when Britain has broken a June heat record that had stood since 1976.

The mercury hit 36.1C in Gosport, Hampshire, the hottest day of the month ever recorded in the UK.

The Met Office has a red extreme heat warning running across large areas of southern England and there is a possibility that temperatures could reach 40C before the week is out.

“We’ve not had a surge in enquiries or requests for prescription deliveries,” said Shah from behind the counter in his air conditioned pharmacy, as he dispenses supplements to a heavily pregnant lady keeping cool with a fan around her neck. “Not as much as I thought we would have”.

More than 1,000 schools across southern England have shut early or closed entirely this week. One in Taunton, in the southwest, told parents that the conditions made it “increasingly difficult to ensure the wellbeing, comfort and safety” of pupils and staff.

Soaked through after an hour’s work, Peter Wride, a gardener, recalled the 1976 heatwave.

“We survived that June in school. No lessons were cancelled, schools didn’t shut,” he said. Back then, pupils cooled off outside in the shade to enjoy story time and a breeze, rather than being kept indoors in a school he described as “a mini greenhouse”.

He believes the response this week has tipped too far towards panic.

Transport for London has warned of disruption to Tube and rail services and Network Rail has asked passengers in red warning zones to travel only if strictly necessary, as the heat threatens overhead lines and signalling.

London Ambulance Service has deployed more than 400 extra ambulance crews on the road this week as temperatures soared, with fire engines and police vehicles also weaving through busy roads of the capital every few minutes.

Major events have also been impacted – the University of Bath postponed its 60th Anniversary Adelard gathering at Bath Abbey, citing the heat and likely travel disruption. In London, a Climate Action Week panel on how cities can adapt to extreme heat was cancelled after organisers found the London School of Economics venue had no cooling system in place, a problem facing much of the city’s older buildings.

“If this was expected in advance, the population should have been more prepared for this,” Shah said.

At home, that gap between warning and preparedness is very real. His grandson, in and out of hospital and sleep-fed because he cannot bottle-feed on his own, has been vomiting continuously since last week, and every bit of lost hydration matters when there is no way to cool the room he sleeps in.

Other European nations have also suffered this week, such as France and Spain where there have been dozens of heat-related deaths.

Out on the roads in London, bus driver Glendon Alflat has had passengers demanding he turn the air conditioning on.

“The company turns off the air conditioning system from the main controls so I can’t switch it on my bus,” he explained, as he cools his head with a handkerchief soaked in cold water. “They want to save money.”

Some passengers get angry, though there is nothing he can do about it. After 35 years behind the wheel, he is used to the job’s quirks, but not this kind of heat that he must endure for his eight-hour shift.

“It is at least five degrees hotter on board because of all the glass, especially at the back of the bus where the engine is,” said the 64-year-old.

“I’ve been drinking a lot of cold drinks, but I’m still dehydrated, so I’m drinking this hot chocolate, it’s cooled me down a bit more,” he said, something plenty of tea drinkers would vouch for.

Nearby, an ice cream van seller is finding his own trade complicated by the kind of weather that should boost business.

Sunshine does not always lead to queues, since footfall can drop in extreme heat as people stay indoors, while his freezers work harder than ever just to keep up.

Meanwhile, 38-year-old Alin Cioloca from Romania, who works as a chef in an Italian restaurant, seems unfazed by the heatwave. His kitchen, where the refrigerators keep meat and the fresh produce cool, is air conditioned.

“But I can’t leave any of it out too long because it will go bad, so I have to time it right,” said Cioloca.

It is not only people who are adjusting. In Hertfordshire, horse rider Dianne Lawrence has called off her morning gallops.

“I can’t bear the heat, but more importantly the horses shouldn’t have to endure it,” she said, explaining that they are kept cool in stables with managed airflow and reflective fly covers that also act as protection against the sun.

Shah argued that the problem is the absence of warning.

“We are never prepared for this and as the 5th or 6th richest country in the world, we are never ready for these sorts of things which are probably going to be the norm,” he said.

What he wants is not more alarm in the moment but advance notice long before the mercury rises.

He believes there should be clear government warnings issued early enough for people to buy fans, fit shades, check on vulnerable people and plan their lives around summers that are no longer the exception but, as he sees it, the new normal.