Britons are as ill-prepared to handle summer heat as we are for blizzards. And yet they are enduring what is being termed as the century’s fiercest summer. July temperatures have peaked at 31 degrees Celsius and around 650 lives are lost.

The heat has been the talk of the country and newspapers have devoted special sections on how to keep cool – put your pillow in the fridge was one tip. The BBC joined in and quoted one expert who suggested people consider “wearing looser clothes, like the robes favoured by the Bedouin”.

The country’s Met Office said the hot weather was due to a high pressure system that has been hovering over Britain for days. And it’s showing no sign of moving. Temperatures are forecast to remain above normal into next week and there is no rain in sight. “It’s very unusual to get hot weather in the UK,” Met spokeswoman Lindsay Mears told The Globe and Mail. “We’ve been getting a huge, huge, huge number of calls.” So how are she and other staff at the Met beating the heat? “We’ve got air conditioning,” she said. “But when we go out the door, it feels like we are in another country.”

Another country is a very apt description of the situation. July temperatures there are normally around 21 C and air conditioning is rare. The word summer itself has a German origin (from Germanic Sommer) where it is mostly intense. The British summer, it has been said for decades, consists of two fine days and a thunderstorm. This assertion has been variously attributed to Charles II and George II, although Richard Inwards’ volume, Weather Lore, perhaps wisely regards its originator as anonymous.

In terms of warmth (heat so far has not been an accurate term to be spatchcocked with summer), a phenomenon of American origin called the Indian summer, i.e., a brief spell towards the close of the year, has been more common. In the UK, the term ‘Indian summer’ is used loosely for a period of unseasonable warmth and sunshine in late September, October, or November. In former times in English-speaking regions of Europe, Indian summer was called Saint Martin’s Summer, referring to St. Martin’s day, November 11. An alternative was Saint Luke’s summer. Another alternative was ‘All-hallown summer’, as All Hallows, also called All Saints Day, is a Christian festival in honour of all the saints in heaven, held (in the Western Church) on November 1.

But, believe it or not, the Britons have weathered worse summers than this one. In the living memory, 1976 was the hottest, longest and driest summer on record. The situation was so bad a minister for drought, Denis Howell, was appointed. The rivers Don, Sheaf, Shire Brook and Meers Brook (all in Sheffield) all ran completely dry, without a drop of water in any of them. In the Central England Temperature series, 1976 has the hottest summer for more than 350 years and probably for much longer. The summer was so hot that it is embedded in the national psyche, with subsequent heatwaves in 1995, 1997, 2001, 2003 and 2006, all using 1976 as a benchmark.

Before 1976 came along with its exceptional heatwaves and unprecedented drought, the benchmark summer against which subsequent seasons were compared was that of 1959. Although half a century has passed, with summers becoming progressively warmer at least during the last two decades or so, 1959 still holds one or two records. It was a summer noted for its longevity rather than its intensity. There was one short spell, July 4-8, when the temperature climbed above 30°C over a wide area, and readings of 33.3°C were logged on July 5 in London and Norfolk.

Other than these two and the present one, it has largely never been more “two fine days and a thunderstorm”.