For months, nobody came through the door. Machines gathered dust, service work evaporated, parts sales were non-existent. Staff sat around all day twiddling their fingers, trying think of selling anything – except lawnmowers.

There have been serious droughts in recent times. Notably 1995, and 2012 which saw the introduction of hosepipe bans in parts of the country. But these were nothing to compare with the summer of 1976.

In the 1970s, I was running the garden machinery branch of an ag machinery dealership operating from substantial premises on a trading estate in Salisbury. Commercial business was good (we were a Ransomes main dealer) - and it was an era when dealers had all the domestic business pretty well to themselves.

In nearby Southampton, Richard Block and David Quayle had converted a furniture store to start selling hardware and limited range of gardening goods, building the business through the 70s to just over 20 B&Q stores by 1980. The internet was 20 years away.

Trouble had started brewing in the summer of 1975 which was unusually dry, followed by winter and spring with below average rainfall. By April 1976, grass fires were affecting parts of southern England. Fields turned to dust-bowls, haymaking was a disaster, and crops were being starved of water.

And it only got hotter and drier. In mid-June there were 16 consecutive days of temperatures over 30C, parts of the south-west England saw no rain for 45 days, 50,000 trees were destroyed in Dorset, cattle died in the heat and over £500 million worth of crops failed. In South Wales, water was cut off to residents for 17 hours a day and stand-pipes were erected in the streets.

Sportsgrounds were hard hit. During the summer, the Government had introduced Emergency measures to allow water companies to restrict usage, but gave no special dispensation for sport. At the Open played at Royal Birkdale, greens staff were able to use their private water storage, but gorse fires broke out in the rough during the Championship.

Racecourses were rock-hard and fields were decimated as trainers refused to risk their horses. Outfields at cricket grounds were straw-coloured and lightning fast – and even the MCC allowed members to remove their jackets in the pavilion for the first time in living memory, but not their tie!

The sustained drought period lasted almost five months from early April until the end of August. The Government appointed Dennis Howell MP, a former FA league referee, as Minister for Drought. He invited the press to his Birmingham home where he revealed that he had taken to sharing a bath with his wife to save water. Days later the heavens opened, and it rained solidly for several weeks, causing widespread flooding. Howell’s post was renamed Minister for Floods!

So how was business for garden machinery dealers for almost 20 weeks of the peak growing season? Pretty well non-existent, although the drought did not impact on Scotland so severely.

There is of course no comparison with today’s issues as the country fights to overcome this deadly virus. For a start, the beaches and parks were packed. Ice-cream manufacturers worked overtime. Sunscreen was in short supply. People were out and about all summer enjoying conditions more akin to southern Spain.

Playing our part
There is no moral to this story. It was a totally different challenge for one, smallish industry. But, at that time, in those circumstances, business for dealers stopped for months on end, only to be followed by the quiet winter months. Some went out of business, but overall the sector bounced back in the following year.  I has to be said that was probably 'more fat' in dealers finances at that time, allowing them to survive (but no Government support)

This current crisis is unlike anything any of us has experienced before, even during the war years. But ultimately, crops will produce, the grass will grow and in the autumn the leaves will fall off the trees. Nature will prevail, the nightmare will come to an end.

Move forward 25 years, and on 11 September 2001, like everyone, I watched the world change as planes ploughed into the Twin Towers. Suddenly, in that one afternoon, we stopped and put our lives into context. What seemed important hours earlier, suddenly lost all relevance.

The following day, I was out with a manufacturer on a prestige golf course, tramping across soft, dewy fairways admiring the Autumn colours, taking in the aroma of cut grass heightened by dampness.

We can sometimes take the environment in which we operate for granted, but if ever there was a time, it is now, for us to thank those on the front line, pay respect to those who has have suffered - and play our part in the path back to normality.