Plan to bring UK clocks forward

[Mr Celine]

I can remember having to walk to school in the pitch dark for weeks during the previous experiment. It was no fun at all and I wouldn't wish that on my or anyone else's kids. If this goes ahead I'll be driving them to school.

Thankfully parliament eventually saw sense and ended the 1968 -1970 british standard time experiment. The MP for Ipswich, which being in the extreme east of the UK has most to gain by replacing Greenwich time with Berlin time said in support of reverting to GMT

I respectfully submit that any hon. Member is bound to reiterate the arguments that have gone before, because the voice of the nation has spoken so clearly, but in every case I have had there has been reference to the same things—the loss of productivity, the danger, the disadvantage, the increase in accidents, and the sheer tediousness of the present experiment. Indeed, the only members of the population—apart from golfers, who were, I understand, mentioned earlier—who have felt strongly about keeping the present system are those of the criminal profession who specialise in burglary. I understand that the extra hour comes conveniently for them at one end. However, I am comforted by reflecting that what is bad for burglars may be good for the Bar. The overwhelming voice of my constituency seems to be echoed by the voice of the nation. Doubt has been thrown, perhaps with some reason, on the opinion polls. My hon. Friend the Member for Preston, North (Miss Holt) was even able to find an opinion poll which did not add up either numerically or by results. But the most recent poll—the Harris poll this morning—showed a figure of 57 per cent. in favour of Greenwich Mean Time, 37 per cent. in favour of British Standard Time, and 6 per cent.—perhaps the traditional 6 per cent.—"Don't knows". I hope that we are pushing at an open door, and I am quite convinced that we have the bulk of the nation pushing behind us.

You can read the rest of the debate at Hansard

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

I tend to find the debate a little confusing because I seem to approach it from the opposite angle. No matter what number you attribute to a certain point in the daytime it's not going to make a second's difference to the actual length of daylight. And the problem in winter is going to be more pronounced the further north you are. The only real way of getting around that would be by doing things like shortening the Scottish school day, and make up the lost time by either sending children to school on Saturday mornings in winter or by lengthening the school day in the summer. School doesn't have to start at 9am and if it's safer to have a 10am - 3pm day six days a week rather than a 9am - 4pm day 5 days a week, then those would be the hours that should be adopted.

 

[ColinJ]

In deep winter in the UK, we just haven't got enough hours of daylight so there is always going to be a problem. Even if you shift the daylight to an hour later it is still going to be dark too early to do much after work or school. Perhaps that should be left alone.

Ideally we'd change the clocks forward an hour as soon as it is possible to do so without causing those in the far north problems in the morning, and hang on to that as long as possible at the other end of the year.

It would be really nice to do it a second time for summer so we still have fairly early dawns but not stupidly early as they are now, and we'd have fantastic long summer evenings. I'm fairly sure that there is an EU directive about this though so we wouldn't be allowed to do it. I'm also sure that people would moan about the inconvenience or cost of changing the clocks 4 times a year. It's a pity though!

 

[XmisterIS]

Benefits

What really surprises me is that 10% of the population are still asleep at noon!

Lazy arses ...

 

[Davidc]

I wouldn't be quite so strongly in favour of change if we moved the clocks at the end of November and end of January, but having dark evenings and light mornings in October February and March is really annoying.

The French and Spanish are on the same latitude as us and are an hour ahead of us - I know they're further south - and I'm just plain jealous.

If Newcastle, Edinburgh and Lerwick find it a problem can't they start their schools and milk their cows an hour later than in Lancashire or London where there are more people?

 

[ColinJ]

What really surprises me is that 10% of the population are still asleep at noon!

Lazy arses ...

You don't know what time they went to bed!

I've been getting up between 10:30 and 11:30 recently, but I've been going to bed between 03:30 and 04:30 so that meant I was getting 6-8 hours sleep - not exactly lazing in bed for hours.

 

[snorri]

What really surprises me is that 10% of the population are still asleep at noon!Lazy arses ...

I think you'll find that 90% of those asleep at noon are at work.

 

[marinyork]

I wouldn't be quite so strongly in favour of change if we moved the clocks at the end of November and end of January, but having dark evenings and light mornings in October February and March is really annoying.

I agree. March is particularly bonkers.

 

[marinyork]

I tend to find the debate a little confusing because I seem to approach it from the opposite angle. No matter what number you attribute to a certain point in the daytime it's not going to make a second's difference to the actual length of daylight. And the problem in winter is going to be more pronounced the further north you are. The only real way of getting around that would be by doing things like shortening the Scottish school day, and make up the lost time by either sending children to school on Saturday mornings in winter or by lengthening the school day in the summer. School doesn't have to start at 9am and if it's safer to have a 10am - 3pm day six days a week rather than a 9am - 4pm day 5 days a week, then those would be the hours that should be adopted.

It's not a confusing debate. In practice there isn't the same amount of sunlight for humans as we don't use all of the hours of daylight. People like snorri, farmers and so on are unusual and actually quite intolerant to anyone different from them. Much of the rest of the population is not actually that similar to them. Things aren't symmetric in society either - crime and antisocial behaviour is more associated with the late afternoon and early evening, not in the early hours of the morning.

On the school argument, it's been suggested before for the bodyclock particularly of the average teenager that you might well be better off starting school at 9:30 or even 10am. A lot of the school day is wasted as it is, you can make these changes without a 6 day week. Dunno what school you went to that finished at 4pm, if it did that would be an argument heavily in favour of moving to +1 in itself!!!

 

[marinyork]

I can remember having to walk to school in the pitch dark for weeks during the previous experiment. It was no fun at all and I wouldn't wish that on my or anyone else's kids. If this goes ahead I'll be driving them to school.

You brought something to the debate with the Hansard comments and the history, however I'd like to pull you up on your vague recollections. What time did you leave the door to set off for school? How many 'weeks' and was it pitch black or merely are you exaggerating e.g. 15 mins before civil twilight, inside nautical twilight etc. I'm unsure about where this paranoia comes from for the morning that seems to somehow not count for the journey home.

 

[Mr Celine]

You brought something to the debate with the Hansard comments and the history, however I'd like to pull you up on your vague recollections. What time did you leave the door to set off for school? How many 'weeks' and was it pitch black or merely are you exaggerating e.g. 15 mins before civil twilight, inside nautical twilight etc. I'm unsure about where this paranoia comes from for the morning that seems to somehow not count for the journey home.

Putting the exact co-ordinates of my primary school in Perth and dates in 1969/70 during the experiment into this sunrise / set calculator shows that the sun did not rise before 09:30 between 06/12/69 and 21/01/70. On 23/12/69 which was probably the last day of term sunrise was at 09:47. As there would have been two weeks in that period which were Xmas holidays I'll concede that I only had to walk to school in the pitch dark for 5 weeks.
I left for school at 08:30 am. Always within nautical twilight, which is only really relevant to mariners and astronomers, but always at least an hour before calculated sunrise. If you factor in the surrounding hills, which make actual sunrise later that the calculated times, and normal winter weather, it was dark. Very dark. Most of my route to school was unlit.

Note that with GMT my walk to school would still be made before sunrise for that period, though it would not be dark. School finished at 3:25pm and the earliest sunset during that period was 14/12/69 at 15:36 GMT (16:36 BST), so my walk home would always have been in daylight if we used either GMT or BST.

 

[Cush]

You don't know what time they went to bed!

I've been getting up between 10:30 and 11:30 recently, but I've been going to bed between 03:30 and 04:30 so that meant I was getting 6-8 hours sleep - not exactly lazing in bed for hours'

Did that for nearly thirty years but sometimes (often) worked on till 06:00. I never got used to those hours. Now I am normally up between 05:00 and 06:00. and all I want is for the clocks not to be changed twice a year.

 

[marinyork]

Always within nautical twilight, which is only really relevant to mariners and astronomers, but always at least an hour before calculated sunrise. If you factor in the surrounding hills, which make actual sunrise later that the calculated times, and normal winter weather, it was dark. Very dark. Most of my route to school was unlit.

Not quite. There's a noticeable difference between each end of civil twilight and even before that. It's just a way of quantifying it. It's not universally agreed what people call 'dark'.

Note that with GMT my walk to school would still be made before sunrise for that period, though it would not be dark. School finished at 3:25pm and the earliest sunset during that period was 14/12/69 at 15:36 GMT (16:36 BST), so my walk home would always have been in daylight if we used either GMT or BST.

Short walk home then? In other words, not really half as big a deal as you make out...

 

[Mr Celine]

Not quite. There's a noticeable difference between each end of civil twilight and even before that.

Gosh! Really!?? I never noticed. Probably because, if you check the link for sunrise / sunset times I gave earlier, I was never walking to school in civil twilight, but at best only nautical twilight, or what most people would call 'dark'.

Short walk home then? In other words, not really half as big a deal as you make out...

How do you know? I didn't say I could get home before sunset, I said I could get home in daylight. It's not universally agreed what people call 'daylight'.

 

[MacB]

Folks, before daggers are drawn over a long ago walk to school can either of you knowledgeable chaps explain the timings of the clock changes? Why is the Autumn change so much closer to the shortest day than the Spring one? If it is necessary to make a change in Winter wouldn't keeping that change to as short and overall period as possible make sense? By my reckoning the clocks could have gone forward two weeks ago and nobody would be experiencing anything now that they didn't already experience in late Sept/Oct.