Ever wondered about the reasons behind the clocks mysteriously going forward and back twice a year? I never knew why the government decided to change such a seemingly insignificant part of our lives and I hope to educate both myself and all those reading as well as answering the question about its significance.

First of all, our clocks go forward on the 29th of March this month, as it does every year on the last Sunday of March. This idea originated back in the 1700s, with the American inventor Benjamin Franklin. However, his claims didn’t have much of an effect until 1907 when a William Willet made a more serious claim for daylight saving time. He published documents called “The Waste of Daylight” but again these ideas weren’t implemented until the First World War. In 1916, Germany adopted this time to increase productivity. Ever since these examples, the clocks have been moved back and forward to make sure that there are more hours of daylight in the day for work and school times.

What is British Summer Time? Well, it is the period between March and October when the clocks are forward and hour from the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). There were motions to change British Summer Time (BST) in 2010-12 but these ideas in parliament were quickly dismissed due to the problems it would cause with people travelling to school or work in darkness. This does raise the question whether BST should be kept or whether the clocks should stay the same throughout the year?

Some say that one of the main reasons for BST is the fact that it saves energy, because natural light is used instead of electricity. However, in our modern society, this energy saving in negligible as we use so much electricity constantly anyway. I know for a fact that I am not looking forward to the clocks going forward on the 29th, because it means that when getting up for school, I’m really getting up an hour earlier. This could highlight another disadvantage, which would be the decrease in productivity – completely contradicting one of the key reasons why BST was introduced in the first place. When the clocks go forward, and I get one less hour of sleep, I can tell you that for the first few lessons of school, my productivity levels will not be high!

In my opinion, my life isn't affected much by the clocks changing at the moment (maybe that will change as I get older!) and so the necessity of BST doesn't seem too significant to me. So enjoy your one less hour of sleep, and look forward to the time when we get that hour back!

I received my information from ‘The Royal Museums Greenwich’ website, Visit https://www.rmg.co.uk/ to find out more, Written by Alex Topliss