General Chat

Janet. I wasn't questioning what the Australians do about time zones. What I wanted to know was how with many of their large business centres on different times they coped with business transactions. This was a point raised by InspectorGreenPen in the context of Scottish call centres. I guess they cope OK and so there may be some lessons for us? Best learn from the experiences of others.

As a retired psychiatric nurse some years you
worked christmas day and boxing day and as
usually happened the following year new years day
and the 2nd January, we thought nothing of it, part
and parcel of the job. As Eddie said the people in
these type of jobs will always work on these holidays
and like myself wouldn't find it a problem.

Emma

Oh, Joan, how I remember that winter! Snowed on Boxing Day and was still frozen on the ground at Easter!

Thanks Potty for the info on the Bank Holiday in Scotland. Having spent 40 years having to work some I haven't taken as much notice as I should. Until we in England got New Years Day I really did envy the Scots, each year I dragged myself to work on New Years Day because we weren't allowed to take it as annual leave. Thank goodness I don't have bother about them anymore.

...and yes Eddie I do know that longitude plays its part...every 4 minutes .......jle

I think probably the majority of people do work on boxing day anyway. Certainly neither my wife nor I ever had a day off because it was boxing day. Moreover, we don't have much industry now, just services. Certainly the fire, ambulances, hospital cooks, nurses, nursing homes and plods will be working. And the buses, trains, planes, shops, garages, hotels, tourist attractions, gas and electicity engineers, call centres, etc etc. Bank holiday? Whats that then?

Evidence shows that more road accdents occur in the afternoon, not the morning. I would have no problem with my daughter travelling to college in the dark. I'll be less happy about her coming home in the dark in a few weeks though.

Also it is not just about latitude, logitude plays a part too. Here on the west side of Devon the sun rises and sets about 10 minutes after L.ondon.

The 2nd of January has been a Bank Holiday in Scotland for as long as New Years Day has been one in England and Wales - it is not something people there are asking for as a new thing. They are being asked to work on a Bank Holiday - how would workers in England react to being asked to work on Boxing Day?

Denis, if you understand that it is a matter of ' latitude' or latitude then why question what Australia do about changing their clocks. In the North of Australia, in Darwin their 'shortest' day is 11 hours and 23 minutes, in the south in Melbourne their shortest day is 9 hours and 32 minutes. Here in England in Manchester as an example the shortest day is 7 hours and 28 minutes. If we had a few more hours to play with I am sure no-one would mind what happened to the clocks but we haven't.
As for the Scots complaining about working January 2nd it probably stems from the fact that they had New Years Day as a bank holiday and we didn't. Now we do, they probably want the 2nd of January as they think they have been short changed. -Jle

That's a really useful contribution by InspectorGreenPen about call centres on 2 January and the like. Would be interesting to know how they cope with such issues in Australia, Canada etc. I think Australia has five different time zones so Perth, Brisbane ,Adelaide and Sydney are, I think, all on different times. Perhaps Aussies are a little more pragmatic than us. And Potty is right too - it's all a matter of latitude.

Well, the clocks have chaged to GMT and children are going to school and coming home in the light.

If we were still on Summer time it would not be getting light in the morning until an hour later.

If your kids go out at 8:00 then look out at 07:00 and ask yourself if you would be wanting to send them out at that time, for that's what it would be like if we had not put the clocks back at the end of last month.

Martin, I think it is more an argument between South and North, rather than England and Scotland. After all, there is quite a bit of England that is further North than some areas of Scotland!

I love that most of you think that this is a political argument between England and Scotland does WALES get a say or have you forgotten about us we are here!! LOL

I only read of this proposal a few days ago and I can recall the former scheme 1969-1971 when children walked to school in the dark. Schools sold fluorescent armbands, I bought 4 - 2 for each child. The scheme was scrapped and we were told at the time due to a large increase in accidents. One morning I delivered my children into the care of the lollipop lady and as a group they began to walk across, there was a loud screech of brakes as a car tried to avoid the children and lady - luckily they did. I spoke to her later and she said she had had more narrow squeaks since the change in clocks. We have young children either side of us and they certainly do not play in the gardens in the colder weather unless we have a sunny weekend.

Ok seven not six, but it doesn't change the principle of the matter.

Different time zones in Scotland? Right - so lets see. There are thousands of people working in Glasgow for a well known high street BBank in Financial Services. Most of their customers live in England.

The staff up there already object to having to work on the 2nd January and are not going to be too happy at having to mess around with their working hours too, because at the end of day their English masters will want them to work English hours, irrespective of what the Scottish clock says.

I don't really see why it would be such a problem for business cross border, when many cross channel without too much problem. It would probably take as long to get to Scotland as it would to cross channel.
Still on balance I would opt for Scotland and England to have separate time. After all, they do in other things.
This is not political.
Also, how many people fly on holliday and have jet lag? Surely changing clocks is not much different. !!
Sue

Sorry InspectorGreenPen but in Mid winter as I have already pointed out in an earlier message the exact times of daylight available on or around the 22nd December in various parts of Britain I would like your 'just over six hours' to be amended to the correct calculation of 'just over seven hours' as 1545- 0830 = 7 hrs 15 minutes.-Jle

Yes wisechild I agree with your last sentence.

Well.We did it.
Changed the clocks last night & what happened?
Instead of waking up at 6.30 as normal, I have been awake since 5.30 & so has the cat, because no one explained to him that he could have an extra hour in bed.
Going to bed later the night before doesn´t work.
So I have an extra hour to fill today & it will probably take several days to re adjust. Moving to summertime & double summertime would still involve changing by an hour twice a year. Why not just leave things as nature intended?
Marion

Bob is absolutely correct, you can't get more daylight, all that happens is that you change the clock time when the sun rises or sets.

Lets look at some details.

Typical GMT (or UTC as it is now known) daylight times in this country are:-

Mid- Winter 8:30 to 15:45 (just over seven hours)
Mid- Summer 3:30 to 20:45 (just over seventeen hours)

Moving the clocks forward an hour in the summer means that sunrise is around 4:30, and sunset 21:45

The further north you go, i.e. Scotland, you get longer days in Summer, and shorter ones in Winter.

The big question, is not what happens in Summer - in fact many people would welcome double Summer time, meaning a 5:30 sunrise and a 20:30 sunset - but what happens in Winter.

As I said, you only have six ours of daylight to play with by the time you get to December - less if you live in Scotland or the north, so on balance, going back to UTC for the winter is probably the best compromise for them. Southerners might prefer to stay with Summertime.

However, having different time bands across the UK is a non starter. What is more likely is that we all move to Central European Time, thus DST in Summer ST in Winter, because it suits cross border business better, and has nothing to do with when average Joe public prefers to get up.

Which of course takes us right back to the original post.

I agree with Brian's point about the icy roads, and I have wondered if the temperature profile around dawn has been taken into accont when they say that there would be fewer accidents with the proposed changes.

Also, the amount of traffic at rush hour and school starting times bears no relation to that when the last experiment was carried out, so the thought of children getting out of cars and crossing roads on dark icy mornings does concern me.

Thinking back, in those days, schools worked from approx 9am to 4pm with a 90minute lunch break. To avoid the dark mornings, local schools started later and cut down the lunch break. When the experiment finished, the schools reverted to the earlier starting time and finsished earlier in the afternoon.

As a parent I would have hated to have longer (hottter) evenings in summer when children needed to get to sleep.

I for one hope that this proposal comes to nothing

I leave for work just before 8am, travelling by motorcycle.

In the winter, on GMT, it is light and any frost is starting to melt. If the proposal goes ahead I will be travelling in the dark on icy roads.

Sorry, but I consider my safety to be worth more than giving people who don't get out of bed before 9 o'clock an extra hour of daylight to socialise and play in the evening.

And in the summer, do you really want the kids playing outside until gone 11pm?

I was a lollipop lady in 1970 when they tried it. I must admit I liked it it was still light at 5 00pm in December. Crossing the kids was ok too as it is easier to see cars when they have lights on. At least the kids get an hours play after school to burn off energy and yes it would save energy too, people who didn't have to get up would not have to use their lights etc and would have an extra hour in bed. I love the long light evenings but I think we should all ask the MPs for 12 hours of light and 12hrs of dark, see what they can do about that eh! Elaine.