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Changing Time

Don’t forget to change your clocks!!!

I don’t look forward to losing an hour in bed but do look forward to lighter nights that come with changing time. Don’t you think it makes you feel brighter? It lifts your mood and kicks you into action. A bit of spring cleaning, gardening after work and more ticked off the ‘To Do’ list.  Don’t let the lighter nights trick you into working longer hours though!

So here we go into British Summer Time. Clocks go forward 1 hour when many people will be tucked up in bed on 31st March 2019 at 1am. Unless you are a night owl like me!!!

Do you know who came up with the idea to change the clocks?

purpleviolet virtual assistant, Wakefield, LeedsIt was inventor Benjamin Franklin in 1784! He suggested if people got out of bed earlier, when it was lighter then they would save on candles.

Daylight saving came to the UK when a builder William Willett thought it was also a good idea.  He was Coldplay singer Chris Martin’s great great grandfather by the way, and in 1907, he published a leaflet called The Waste of Daylight, which encouraged people to get out bed earlier. He’d have had a job on encouraging me to get out of bed early. I like to snooze for as long as I can get away with it, probably same as many other Mums.

However, Willett was very passionate about having more daylight and spent most of his life campaigning that moving the clocks was a great idea. One of the reasons Willett wanted more light was his love for golf.  He was always getting annoyed when it started to get dark and he couldn’t finish is game due to the lack of light.

Moving time forward

Willett wasn’t the first to think of the idea of making daylight longer by changing time.  Days were shortened and lengthed by civilisations gone by.  A Roman hour could last 44 minutes during winter, but 75 in summer.  George Hunter an entomologiest from New Zealand had proposed a two-hour shift in 1895 but his idea was ridiculed, and then 6 years later in 1901, King Edward VII put the clocks back 30 minutes at Sandringham so he could hunt for longer.

Some of Willett’s supporters included David Lloyd George and a young Winston Churchill, then president of the Board of Trade when the UK Government did actually discuss moving the clocks in 1908. One of his opponents was Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, who incidently was born in my home town of Morley. The bill was narrowly defeated in 1909 as were subsequent proposals as so many people didn’t like the idea. Two years into WW1, Britain was running very short on coal. Willett’s idea meant there’d be longer evenings and not as much demand for lightig powered by coal. Eventually, in 1916 the UK Government passed the Summer Time Act. It was a year after Willett died. The Germans did actually introduce it a year before the UK in WW1.

During WW2 the UK put the clocks forward by another extra hour during summer to cut industrial costs. This was called British Double Summer Time (BDST) but it didn’t last.

The start of BST

As you do know, the clocks in the UK always go forward by 1 hour on the last Sunday in March. They also go back by 1 hour on the last Sunday in October.

So here’s to brighter days and Spring just around the corner and sitting in the beer garden.

If you need help changing time in your day give me a call or email me – 07841711975 jules@purplevioletva.com and find out how I can help you to save time so you can get on with the important stuff to help build your business.