In the early hours of Sunday, one of time’s greatest feats will take place, as the hour goes back giving us another glorious hour in bed.
Precisely, the change will take place at 2am when we should be putting our clocks back to 1am shifting us from British Summer Time to Greenwich Mean Time – but do you know why we do this?
According to the BBC, this year marks the 100 anniversary of the time change which was brought on by a builder known as William Willett who was Coldplay singer, Chris Martin’s, great-great-granddad.
His theory was that if we put the hour forward in summer, it would be lighter in the evenings – giving people an extra hour of sunlight to get their work done – or in Willett’s case, extra time to play golf.
Essentially Willett was getting pissed off to gargantuan extremes that his games of golf were being cut short due to early darkness – so he made it his life’s mission to get the hour pushed forward in the summer and brought back at the end of October to ensure lighter mornings.
He published a leaflet entitled ‘The Waste of Daylight’ which urged people to get out of bed earlier back in 1907 but stepped things up a bit in the years which followed, begging the government to push the hour forward.
It was discussed in parliament but a lot of people were sceptical of the radical change so his plea was rejected.
Finally Willett’s wish was granted but only a year after he died…
Now, the UK’s clocks go back by one hour on the last Sunday in October and forward by one hour on the last Sunday in March.
