Official Explaination Of Why We Put The Clocks Back

[renegadefm]

Here is an official explanation of why we adopted the reason behind putting the clocks back in October :

 

Why do we change the clocks?
 

We change the clocks to get the most out of the daylight.

The first clock change was introduced by the German government in 1916 during the First World War as a means of saving electricity with more daylight hours.

Many European governments followed suit, including Britain, and British Summer Time was born, with the current system in place since 1971.

 

Explanation over, but am I missing something here, we gain more light in the morning, but lose it in the evening, so it doesn't save energy because lights and everything will be turned on sooner at the end of the day compared to the start. 

 

Or am I just missing something here? 

[Old_Geezer]

Even if true, that seems to be the German excuse for doing so, not necessarily of any nation following suit. Although I'm inclined to suspect the reason given was either badly worded or else was just an answer that got irritating questioners off someone's back.

[jno]

the idea came from down under

https://theweek.com/articles/684961/how-new-zealand-insect-hunter-created-daylight-saving-time

[renegadefm]

I just found this:

 

https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/news-opinion/your-say-should-scrap-putting-9655128#comments-wrapper

 

Its surprising how many people would rather we keep the clocks set to BST in the comments. 

[Canary42]

I remember the time we trialled it - I didn't like it.

[Cloverjo]

Maybe we should go back just

half an hour this month and leave it there forever. Keep everyone happy.

I've been in Sweden during their winter, and their afternoons and would feel like the middle of the night to us. They all just get on with day. Not depressing at all.

[renegadefm]

Cloverjo, 

I can't speak for everyone, but for me its the sudden adjustment of having to try and work out mentally why its now pitch black at tea time, typical family tea time is 4.30pm or 5pm I would say.

 

I know it sounds dramatic, but that sudden loss of day light affects my mental wellbeing. 

 

If we didn't bother to change the clocks the adjustment to darker evenings would be much more gradual. 

 

The evenings start to get slowly darker from as early as August. Normally someone around would say, my God isn't the evenings pulling in. I can cope with that because we can't change where we live, well unless we emigrate. But to exaggerate the issue by putting the clocks back another hour, just seems to rub salt into the wound. Well for me anyway. 

But reading people's comments on the link I posted earlier, it seems I am not alone. 

Someone mentioned about altering the clocks affects their sleep patterns. I can relate to that because having an extra hour in bed or hour less doesn't do anyone any favours. 

 

I do however think I am in the minority of wanting to just keep the clocks set to BST.  So it probably won't happen in my lifetime. I just got to live with it. 

[10ClarionSt]

PP @ 15.19:

//no one has mentioned double summertime in WW2// Not true. See my post @ 08.58.

[Khandro]

I wish someone would explain to my dog why I'm an hour late taking her out for her early morning walk.

How long does it take for animals to settle in to the new routine I wonder, this includes the birds in my garden awaiting breakfast. 

 

 

[New Judge]

"Portugal has the same time as the UK not its close neighbour Spain, which is a bit crazy."

It’s not crazy at all. What is crazy is that Spain lines up with European time (i.e. GMT plus one hour). Only a very small part of north-eastern Spain together with the Balearics is east of the Greenwich Meridian. 

All of Portugal is west of all of mainland Britain and most of it is west of the island of Ireland. Lisbon has a longitude of almost ten degrees west and would be better suited to adopt GMT minus one hour. But they'd be virtually on their own if they did.

[mushroom25]

it had been suggested once that the GMT time zone shouldn't end at the channel, but at the River Rhine, with countries west of it aligned to Greenwich. The EU took a dim view....

[Khandro]

N.J. //"Portugal has the same time as the UK not its close neighbour Spain, which is a bit crazy."

It’s not crazy at all. What is crazy is that Spain lines up with European time//

My son would tend to disagree: he owns a property close by the boundary.

[New Judge]

"The EU took a dim view...."

How unusual. 

But then you might expect nothing less from an organisation which insists on its members observing a single time zone which covers more than 30˚ of longitude.

But back to the question: the proposal for "Daylight Saving Time" came from a Kent builder, William Willett. He enjoyed riding and morning golf and noticed that many people still had their curtains drawn well after sunrise in the spring and early summer. He also noticed that it got dark quite early at those times and so the warmer evenings were wasted.

In 1909 he wrote and published a pamphlet "A Waste of Daylight" and proposed that clocks be advanced by twenty minutes at 2am on four consecutive Sundays in April, and reversed on the four Sundays in September. This was later modified to the much simpler system we use today. 

But it was not until after the start of the First World War that the measure was adopted. In 1916 an emergency law was passed to change the clocks twice a year to reduce energy consumption and increase war production.

A memorial to William Willett, in the form of a sundial, stands in Petts Wood, in the London Borough of Bromley:

https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-the-willett-memorial-sundial-petts-wood-south-london-57728865.html

[New Judge]

"My son would tend to disagree: he owns a property close by the boundary."

But if Spain adopted GMT the same as Portugal he'd have no problems. From a geographical point of view it would make much more sense as the vast majority of Spain is west of the Greenwich Meridian and the small amount to the east is no more than about three degrees that way.

But of course the EU would never let a trifling thing such as geographical reality get in the way of its manic ideology.

 

[Khandro]

NJ //But if Spain adopted GMT the same as Portugal he'd have no problems.//

Just look at the map of Europe it would make no sense. In fact it makes no sense for the UK to have a different time, We should align with them or vice versa.

In a former life, I used to have to phone a lot to people in French Universities, and with French 2 hour lunches plus the typical coffee and tea times out of sync. In a 7 hour day the window where you could catch people was considerably reduced.

Of course I accept that mobile phones have made some difference now to that.

[New Judge]

“We should align with them or vice versa.”

Not that there’s a problem (it doesn’t matter if Spain and/or Portugal or anywhere else in Europe operate different time zones to the UK), but vice versa is the only solution that would make sense - and that doesn’t make all that much sense.

Time zones should ideally cover no more than 15˚  of longitude. Of course that would not always be possible as it would make no sense to split a small country into different zones just because it covered more than that. But in principle that is what should happen. The UK lies between around 8˚  West (around Lough Erne in Fermanagh) and 2˚  East (Lowestoft). The GMT time zone is, of course, centred on the Greenwich Meridian (0˚ )

“Western European Time” (GMT + 1) extends from the western extremity of Spain (around Vigo) to the eastern border of Poland (Hrubieszów is about the furthest east I can find. I’ll ignore the extreme north east of Sweden, which actually extends further east than parts of Russia). 

Vigo lies at a longitude of almost 9˚  West, Hrubieszów at about 24˚  East. Ignoring a small difference because of differing latitudes, the difference in the times of sunrise/sunset between these two places is over two hours.

That is just silly. 

You urged me to look at the map. I have. It's clear nobody in the EU did when they designed the time zones that they imposed on the bloc.