Time to see the light on changing the clocks

The pleasure of staying longer in bed, of course, is the sugar coating on the bitter pill that tells us winter has arrived. For some it’s a more unpalatable fact than for others, since it heralds not just the delights of busy kitchens, with Christmas close behind, but dragging hours of darkness. The absence of light in winter-time turns normal life on its head. At its nadir, it makes you wonder if it’s even worth getting out of bed, since all too soon it will be necessary to close the curtains and coorie in again for the night. Those who need daylight and birdsong to function properly can, by midwinter, be toiling. For them, this is a very bleak time indeed.

Almost every year, as we prepare to put back the clocks, the same question arises: should we stop fiddling with the controls, and keep British Summer Time (BST) permanently? Cue dismay in the most northerly parts of the UK – Hadrian’s Wall and beyond – at the prospect of rising in pitch blackness and not seeing a glimmer of natural light until 10 in the morning.

The time-lag between the sun rising in Torquay and when it reaches Fair Isle could be seen as a metaphor for the cultural gulf between north and south. Towns near the English Channel are more aligned with the rest of middle Europe – and not just in terms of sunlight – than with fellow Britons at the farthest points of the kingdom.

Little wonder the north is regarded in myths as the land of darkness and ice, since there’s more than a grain of truth in that. But for those of us who live in what others consider Ultima Thule, the shortness of days from November to February is no laughing matter. Even in Norway, whose year fluctuates between the extremes of almost perpetual night and day, residents find it hard to adjust. Familiarity does not make it any easier to bear the wall-to-wall dark that blankets the country in winter.

For some, there is a sort of romance in the deepening dusk. In his superb lyrical account, The Idea of North, Peter Davidson stands at his Aberdeenshire window one winter’s afternoon, knowing he will soon be engulfed: “It has been dark in Tromsø since noon, the grey-painted rooms of Stockholm have been dim with evening for over an hour… Night has moved down island by island: Faroes, Shetlands, Orkneys. Stromness is dark now, the twin lights marking the channel reflect across the sheltered bay. Thurso and Wick are in the dark now ...The light is going fast now, and already the afternoon has begun to fade, even in the cities to the south … ”

At the end of the 1960s, Harold Wilson experimented with year-round Summer Time. I had just started school, and remember the indignity of fluorescent armbands being stitched to my duffel coat for the long walk there and back, even though my dad, a teacher, was with me every step of the way.

That trial soon ended, after protests from up north, where folk found the prolonged night-time too much to cope with. Added to which was the obvious road hazard to school children and other pedestrians, and to farmers, whose already dangerous work had to be carried out under cover of dark.

All these were valid reasons to maintain the status quo, which had begun during the First World War, as a way of economising on coal. Today, as fuel costs and scarcity are to the fore of everyone’s minds, the same argument is being made, but this time to bolster the cause of permanent BST. The case is further strengthened by calculations of the additional carbon emissions resulting from putting the clocks back – approximately 450,000 tonnes.

There are other good reasons for a rethink. According to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, the current system results in 80 deaths and more than 200 serious injuries each year. In addition, farming practices have changed dramatically since the 1960s, with automation removing some of the perils of unlit mornings. Meanwhile evenings that are lighter for longer would, it is argued, be better for the country’s mental wellbeing, and for physical health. Certainly, commuters leaving home in the dark would catch a brief spell of twilight on their return, rather than feeling like moles at either end of the day, travelling as if underground.

So what would it be like if, at the tail end of the year, the nights did not start drawing in around half past three, but gave us an extra hour’s grace? At this, the most crepuscular time of the year, would that make a difference? And would it be enough to compensate for the never-ending night that would smother us long after breakfast was cleared?

Thankfully I don’t suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), but nor do I relish the prospect of needing the lights on for three hours after getting up. The idea of darkness beyond the windows, or on the roads, for such a prolonged period could be oppressive, especially in freezing conditions. It would feel as if we had been abandoned, that the sun had forgotten to rise.

Those affected by SAD, I have read (which accounts for up to 25% of people with severe depression), need as much light as possible in the morning. For them, reversing the clock change would be truly miserable. Some, indeed, advocate putting the clocks back by three hours rather than one, to give them a fighting chance.

Maybe it’s worth experimenting with year-round BST for a couple of years, as did Harold Wilson, to see how we get on. Let’s not forget, though, that either way, we will still be locked into a season where light is precious and scarce. Other than tinkering around the edges, there’s nothing we can do to change that.

Read more by Rosemary Goring:

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