This week, in Britain, everyone will be thinking about changing to British Summer Time (BST) now becoming known as Daylight Saving Time (DST). In the early hours of Sunday 29th March everyone will be waking up to change their clocks, moving them on by one hour, and losing an hour’s sleep. This will mean going to bed an hour earlier, won’t be able to stay in bed an hour later as all the other people will be up and about. Clock changing is much easier nowadays, especially on gadgets as they do it themselves. Initially, mornings will be a little darker for slightly later, however the end of the day will stay lighter for longer, giving longer days. But why and when did this start and why are we still doing it?
It all started in WW1 by Germany in order to conserve energy resources. By relying on natural daylight which covered more of the daytime, then the need for resources, particularly coal to create electricity, lessened. This idea was quickly adopted by other countries, in particular Britain. During WW2 Britain took this idea further and introduced double summer time. It did only last for the length of the war. However, the idea of one hour has been retained by many countries. Every year there is a discussion as to whether this should be retained or discarded, each year there never appears to be a strong enough argument to discard it, and so it continues. One of the major reasons given is road safety, although the research hasn’t been conclusive either way, with many factors contributing to the uncertainty. The only time this didn’t happen in Britain, was between 1968 and 1971 when the clocks went forward but not back. The experiment was discontinued as it was found impossible to assess the advantages and disadvantages of British Summer Time.
There has been some aligning of dates for the change in time to take place, particularly in Europe with the date being set as the last weekend in March. The EU has also tried to end this event but unsuccessfully. Currently, about 70 countries worldwide adopt some form of daylight saving, mainly in Europe and North America.
Why not take this further, other than for measurement, do we really need time. For many centuries humans seemed to survive extremely well without knowing what time of day it was. Wake up when its light, go to bed when its dark, eat when hungry. Fill the day in with work or keeping busy. Should there be a start and finish time? If you know you have to work for three hours before having a break, set a timer or even go back to using candles– therefore measuring time rather than telling time. Obviously, this isn’t practical and could never happen, modern life is far too complicated, with too many factors to be thought about and considered.
Whatever your feelings about the twice-yearly ritual for changing (or forgetting to change) the clocks, don’t forget to do it, even though this one is more difficult, losing an hour of sleep time, not getting it back until the Autumn.
Happy summer time!
Man on a bike. 