The clocks go BACK an hour tonight at 2am
In October in the UK summertime officially ends, the clocks go back and we revert to GMT again. The mornings get lighter and evenings darker.
The time changes tonight, (tomorrow morning) on October 25th at 2:00am which means you'll have an extra hour in bed. To remember which way to set your watch, there's a useful (albeit slightly American) saying: “spring forward, fall back”.
An Englishman thought up the idea...
William Willett laid out a serious proposition for the daylight saving scheme Photo: Getty
A man called William Willett introduced the idea of British Summer Time, also known as Daylight Saving Time, in 1907. He wnated to prevent people from wasting valuable hours of light during summer mornings.
He published a pamphlet called 'The Waste of Daylight' in a bid to get people out of bed earlier by changing the nation’s clocks.
Willett proposed that the clocks should be advanced by 80 minutes in four incremental steps during April and reversed the same way during September.
Willett then spent the rest of his life trying to convince people his scheme was a good one. Sadly, he died of the flu in 1915 at the age of 58; a year before Germany adopted his clock-changing plan on April 30, 1916 when the clocks were set forward at 11 pm.
Britain followed suit a month later on May 21.
Home Office poster announcing restoration of Greenwich Time, 1916 Photo: ©Private collection
By then Britain and Germany had been fighting each other in the First World War (1914-18), and a system that could take pressure off the economy was worth trying.
The Summer Time Act of 1916 was quickly passed by Parliament and the first day of British Summer Time, 21 May 1916, was widely reported in the press.
Back then the hands on many of the clocks could not be turned back without breaking the mechanism.
Instead, owners had to put the clock forward by 11 hours when Summer Time came to an end.
The Home Office put out special posters telling people how to reset their clocks to GMT, and national newspapers also gave advice.
So enjoy your sleep in by one hour tomorrow and keep smiling even though British Summertime ends. Good night everyone.
