What’s the time Mr Wolf?

British Summer Time ends at 01:00 on Sunday morning and as such clocks are turned back an hour. Depending on where you look, the reasons state that this was to make the most of daylight hours. One site even states that during WW2 British DOUBLE Summer Time was 2 hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and was temporarily introduced when daylight saving would be in force, and during the winter were kept 1 hour ahead of GMT to increase productivity.

The way I remember which way the clocks go is “spring forward, fall back” . i.e. in spring time we move forward an hour (an hour less in bed) and in autumn, we move back an hour (an hour extra in bed). According to some “fall” used as term for autumn is actually of Germanic origin adopted by 16th century England as a contraction of expressions like “fall of the year”, and not American as some would think.

For most of us, this moment in time will go unnoticed as we’ll be asleep, however I wonder how those working the night shift view it. Particularly those jobs that require time stamped data. For example if someone was giving birth at 01:00 would the baby’s birth certificate show midnight or 01:00 as time of birth? Would that baby actually be an hour older than their birth certificate states? If the police apprehend a criminal during some misdead, was the time of arrest an hour later, so when they ask the question “where were you at 01:00?” the perpetrator could genuinely they were somewhere else.

The task of physically moving clocks back an hour is painful, especially in this house. Modern devices will change automatically but we have so many manual clocks to change that the task starts early in the day on Saturday, resulting in never being entirely sure what the time is all day.

We have the cooker, microwave and wall clock in the kitchen. The hall clock and barometer in the hall. The study clock. Four clocks in the lounge. R’s bedroom clock. Our bedroom clock and the alarm clock. Analogue watches x4. Thankfully mobile phones, tablets, laptops, PC and TV will all update themselves.

Oh, and just for fun, the alarm clock is always 20 minutes ahead so I can wake up gradually before the 06:00 news. The lounge wall clock is half an hour ahead so that we’re not late for things. And the study clock is backwards. No wonder my body clock is hinky and I’m usually awake by 05:00 and asleep again by 21:00.

I shall endeavour to make the most of the extra hour in bed but suspect I’ll be wide awake.