British Summer Time Begins...
Don't forget! British Summer Time officially started 28th March 2010. Did you remember to put your clocks FORWARD one hour before you went to bed on the Saturday night?...

British Summer Time begins officially on the last Sunday in March at 0100, when we put the clocks forward one hour to 0200. Summer Time ends officially at 0200 hours on the last Sunday in October when clocks shall be put back to 0100 hours Greenwich Mean Time. As the clocks go forward in the UK the hours of daylight increases, giving us more time to spend outside.

British Summer Time 2007
British timekeeping has marked the end of an era with the switch to summer time in the early hours of the 25th March 2007. The change at 0100 GMT was the last one to be signalled from Rugby, in Warwickshire, which has been the source of the time signal since 1927. From 31st March 2007, the long-wave signal, used to keep the "pips" heard on BBC radio services accurate, will start to be broadcast from Anthorn, Cumbria.

Users of the signal, such as emergency services, banks and mobile phone networks, should not notice any change. The national time signal underpins many aspects of society. The newer transmittng mast, located on a Ministry of Defence site in Anthorn, on the west coast of Cumbria, will be easier to maintain than the older antenna in Rugby. It will start broadcasting the national time signal around the clock from midnight on 31st March 2007, one week after the switch to British Summer Time.

Do the clocks go FORWARD or BACK?
Every year in the Spring we adjust our clocks by one hour to take advantage of the changing light conditions as the days get longer thus giving farmers more daylight to work on their arable land. The saddening thing about putting the clocks forward, we lose an hour in bed. But on a brighter note, when the days are drawing in, and it gets alot darker earlier in the day, with wet, cold and frosty mornings, we gain an hour in bed to keep snug under the quilts (by putting the clocks back in Autumn).

A simple analogy to remember which way the clocks go, is to appreciate another word for Autumn is Fall (imagine the leaves falling off the trees). So once we know that, by remembering the following little phrase SPRING Forward, FALL back. Hopefully this will help to to know whether to put our clocks forward or back.

British Summer Time - A background
The idea of British Summer Time was dreamed up in 1906 by William Willett, a Surrey-born builder who believed it would be helpful to maximise and standardise daylight hours. He believed people woke up quicker and in better spirits when it was light, and suffer relatively little as the nights drew in. Mr Willett also argued it would save the country £2m a year in fuel costs. His first idea, an advance of 80 minutes rather than an hour, brought forward in four moves of 20 minutes each, was met with ridicule and derision.

Many were determined to stick to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), which had been in existence for 25 years but had only just been adopted nationally. Railways mounted some of the toughest opposition to daylight saving, arguing time changes and a deviation from GMT could lead to more accidents. Mr Willett campaigned hard, and eventually the first Daylight Saving Bill was introduced in 1908. It was thrown out, as were two further attempts in 1909 and 1911. It finally became law in 1916, as a wartime measure because of an acute coal shortage. It then continued long after the war, and in 1925 it was made permanent by the British Summertime Act.

Did you know: Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is also known as Zulu Time. There are 25 integer World Time Zones from -12 through 0 (GMT) to +12. Each one is 15° of Longitude as measured East and West from the Prime Meridian of the World at Greenwich, England. Some countries have adopted non-standard time zones, usually 30 minutes offset which have a * designation.

Each Time Zone is measured relative to Greenwich, England. There are both civilian designations which are typically three letter abbreviations (e.g. BST) for most time zones. In addition there are military designations. These use each letter of the alphabet (except 'J') and are known by their phonetic equivalent. e.g. Greenwich Mean Time (civilian) or Z = Zulu (military and aviation).

Thought: When a clock is hungry, it goes back four seconds!