Did you learn that at school, to help you remember which way to move the clocks at the start and end of British Summertime?
It's all down to a guy called William Willett, a prominent Edwardian builder who lived in Chislehurst in Kent. He was a keen outdoors chap, and noticed that in the summer, the sun was up - but his neighbours were still abed. What a waste of good daylight, he thought.
The outbreak of WW1 in 1914 put a huge strain on the economy, and the government were looking at ways of cutting costs, and in 1916 they adopted "Daylight Saving" in the hopes that it would reduce costs as less coal would be needed for lighting factories etc. Sadly William died in 1915, and never saw his idea come to fruition.
But he is remembered with a memorial in Pett's Wood, close to his Chislehurst home. It is maintained by the National Trust.
On the back is a sundial, with a Latin inscription meaning "I only count the hours of Summer"
I have no idea what will happen.
At the moment I am not in favour of anything which messes about with my sleep patterns!
But don't forget to adjust your clocks sometime this evening/tomorrow morning.
Trivial fact for the day -William Willett was the great great grandfather of Coldplay's Chris Martin
Oh, I never thought about how this idea had come to be adopted but I AM fascinated by the History of Time-keeping and how that came about- I remember finding a kids book in a Summer fete and buying it because I find time-keeping miraculous! (Also photography!) Thanks for the information! Lovely to read on this sunny Saturday morning!
ReplyDeleteIf only we really could have summertime all year round!
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this. I loathe the change of clocks, but it settles down quickly enough.
ReplyDeleteI don't like the time changes -- when I was a teenager and we started doing it here (had done it in the past but most of my childhood we didn't) it was fun and novel but now, many years later, it just messes me up and I wish they would quit! They keep threatening to but nothing has happened so far.
ReplyDeleteWe started our daylight savings time, earlier this month!
ReplyDeleteLike Bless our clocks sprung forward at the beginning of the month. That will be the fabric I make the bag in. Will be posting in a couple of days another bag I made.
ReplyDeleteWe do a bit earlier here in the US. I heard that Trump is thinking about to erase this idea of daylight savings time. I too have problems with sleep cycle when the clock goes ahead or goes back one hour.
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