Springing Forward At The Corner Café

Hello, everyone, and I hope you all remembered to get up at 1:00 a.m. and adjust your clocks for British Summertime or European Daylight Saving Time if you live in those areas. 😁

If you are anything like me, these clock changes mess you up for several days until you get adapted, and it’s even worse if you have animals as you can’t suddenly change their routine like that. Well, not without some payback from them!! 😁

America and Canada did their Daylight Saving Time two weeks ago and confuses me no end with different countries doing this at different times. Thank goodness for the World Clock sites on the internet!!
Mind you, it would be better if we didn’t do this at all. I don’t see that there is a need for it these days and it must cause havoc with computerised systems all over the place nowadays. It would be much better to choose a time zone and then stick to it all year round. - GMT, BST all year i.e. GMT+1, or even GMT+2 to have a permanent linking to European Daylight Saving Time if they decided to stick at that setting for their region
So why did we start doing this messing about with the clocks?!

Well, we have a builder called William Willett to blame for it. He originally campaigned that clocks should be moved forward 80 minutes each spring, and then reversed by the same amount in September. He suggested it could be done in 20-minute steps forward each Sunday in April and 20-minute steps backwards each Sunday in September. What a palaver that would have been, so thank goodness they didn’t go with that version!!
He died in 1915, but an amended version of his idea - moving the clocks forward one hour in spring and backwards one hour in autumn came into force in the Summer Time Act 1916.

Over the years, a few different variations have been tried.

In 1940 clocks were not put back in the autumn but were advanced an hour the following spring so Britain was operating on British Double Summer Time (GMT+2). Each following year, during World War II, clocks went back in the winter to British Summer Time and then forward in summer to British Double Summer Time.
After the war ended, on 15th July 1945, the clocks were put back one hour to BST, then on 7th October a further hour to take them back to GMT.
Confused?! 😁

Another brief flurry into BDST occurred in the summer of 1947 but lasted only 4 months.

Then as an experiment, between 27th October 1968 and 31st October 1971, Britain remained on GMT+1 all year, so BST both summer and winter!!

In 2018, The European Commission proposed an end to seasonal clock changes coming into force in 2019. YAY, a sensible suggestion from the EU!! But yes, we are in 2021 and still doing clock changes because it needs the approval of the Council Of The European Union before it can come into force. And we know how long that sort of thing can take!!
As Britain has now left the EU, we could make our own arrangements, but so far haven’t. It needs careful sorting if we do, in order to avoid Northern Ireland being in one time zone and The Republic of Ireland another!! We have enough troubles with a border between the two without time complicating things as well!!

So, I guess until the powers that be get their act together, we will keep springing and falling back and forth.
But for now, let’s enjoy the lighter evenings - once we have recovered from losing an hour’s sleep 😴 - and look forward to some better weather in our British Summer Time.

What are your own opinions on the changing back and forth of the clocks wherever you happen to live?
Does it drive you mad or not bother you much at all?
Do you prefer the lighter mornings or the lighter evenings?
Let’s share anything and everything to do with clocks, time and the changing of!!

All are welcome.
And please feel free to share all discussions you enjoy.