|
The Extra Hour The old adage ‘Spring forward, Fall back’ reminds us that we get an extra hour in bed tonight and that the clocks should all be returned to Greenwich Mean Time at 0200 on 31 October. My first job in the morning will be to tour the house resetting all the clocks and watches to their new time, save for one that reset itself at two o’clock thanks to a time signal. Adjusting the clocks in my house will take just a few minutes. Contrast this with the effort required by the curator of Cuckooland, a museum housing the world’s largest collection of Black Forest cuckoo clocks, who has over 600 of the noisy beasts to alter twice a year. Though GMT was long used by mariners to calculate their longitude from the Greenwich meridian, it was not legally introduced throughout the UK until 1880 even though it had been used by the railways since 1848. Until then time had been measured locally, giving rise to much confusion after folk were able to move around the country at greater speeds than before. The annual return to GMT has led again to discussion about the usefulness or otherwise of British Summer Time. Recently, there has been a call that Britain should extend BST into the winter months to reduce carbon emissions, and another which recommends that we adopt European Central Time which is an hour ahead of GMT in winter and a further hour ahead with daylight saving time during the summer months. Personally, I don’t see the merit in tinkering with the time system we already have. While it is perfectly true that GMT gives us lighter mornings, the evenings are darker. Contrariwise, if we extend BST it will have the opposite effect. So, in my view, there is no point in making a change. Doubtless, the arguments will go backwards and forwards for years to come. Meantime, the return to GMT reminds us that winter is definitely upon us.
Related Articles -
Greenwich Mean Time, British Summer Time, European Central Time, GMT, BST, Railway time, daylight saving time, time, winter, the meridian, Cuckooland,
| 
