Last weekend (October 25th) saw the end of British Summer Time (BST) and the return to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and so we gained an extra hour in bed. For many the saying “Spring forward and Fall back” is they way to remember which way the clock is changed in each season.
Although this is now an accepted yearly event for most people in the UK, the custom is fairly recent and has only been an annual event since 1907. The first person to suggest we made use of the extra hours of daylight in the summer was a keen horseman William Willett.
During WWII the need for light later in the day brought about Double British Summer Time where the clocks were 2 hours ahead of GMT in summer and still one hour ahead in winter. A three year trial in 1968 to set the time to BST permanently produced inconclusive results.
There have been calls recently to put the UK on the same time as the rest of Europe with a North/South split (Tundra Time) so Scotland, with less daylight in winter, continues to use BST/GMT and benefits more in the winter.
Whichever time is adopted it is perhaps best to remember that the clock is a human invention that has no bearing on the cycles of day/night and summer/winter. It’s just the way we view it.