Daylight saving time — is it really useful?

I always hated it when the United Kingdom put the clocks forward an hour in the Spring and back an hour in the Autumn. I saw it happen for nearly 30 years and another thirty years later I still don’t understand how it helped anyone.

In the short term, in the winter months, it would become dark around 4 or 5 in the evening because, in reality, it was really 5 or 6. You also woke up to very dark mornings; in fact, it was not only very dark but also very cold and you immediately wanted to stay away from work, school or university for the day.

And it didn’t help when, sometimes, it would also rain. I remember in the winter months, the first thing I would do in the mornings was to look out of my bedroom window to see what the weather was like and often change my mind about what I’d be wearing that day if it looked particularly cold.

In the summer, however, we’d all be talking about how light outside it still was at 6 in the evening, forgetting that, in reality, it was really 5 o’ clock. We’d also be amazed at how bright the mornings were forgetting that the 7 o’ clock on our clocks was really 8! Oh how fickle-minded we were.

No one ever questioned, or even wondered, why their lives were being adjusted because some people out there decided that we should trick our minds into believing these new timings were natural events, and for our own good. Little did we know that these clock changes were, in fact, first introduced in the early 1900s, in conjunction with industry professionals, to boost productivity and, hence, the country’s economy.

More time in the day meant more production time. But what it actually does is just disrupt people’s normal shifts to later in the day when, in reality, the number of daylight hours remains the same.

Doctors never objected to these changes back then. But decades later doctors are now questioning the need for these purposeful, and maybe even needless, time changes, saying that they were not good for people’s health and wellbeing.

The most alarming side effect of these clock changes, according to doctors, is that they may cause cancer. Another is an increase in depression in the winter because it’s darker sooner. Plus, over the years there’ve also been numerous reports of increases in car accidents on the roads in the morning in the winter months because clocks have gone forward an hour.

When clocks do go forward, in the first few days it has a profound effect on a person’s circadian rhythm. Suddenly it’s later in the evening. Therefore, a person who would normally turn in at 11 has to do so, technically, at 10. This means he’s not sleepy and is tossing and turning, trying to adjust to the new bedtime, and trying to fall asleep.

Then when morning comes he’s forced to rise an hour early even though he didn’t sleep well the night before. Imagine the irritation he must feel. Of course he’s not going to be focused on the road and is highly likely to get into an accident, perhaps with someone also going through the same problem. Yes, after a while we all got used to it but, lo and behold, come the spring, and the opposite happens which can also be very unsettling and disruptive.

Doctors now want these daylight saving times to be completely dispensed with. If it’s winter time right now, they suggest leaving it as winter time and if it’s summer time right now then leave it as summer time.

But I doubt if these clock changes will ever be eliminated. In previous years doctors have voiced the same concerns but daylight saving times continue. The whole clock change affair in the summer months reminds me of how Michael McIntyre joked about people being in awe of how bright it still was around 6 in the evening; that’s all we seem to talk about in the summer. It didn’t occur to any of us that it was all under other people’s control.