February 20 letters: Counting the days to arrival of lighter nights

From: Alan Greenwood, Lightcliffe, Halifax.

SPRING and the start of British Summer Time (BST) still seem a long way off, particularly with it still getting dark at 5.30pm. Something struck me about this which I have never seen explained or even mentioned.

I was calculating the number of days from when the clocks were put back at the end of BST (October 26, 2014) to the shortest day at the Winter Solstice (December 22, 2014). I make this 58 days. When I calculated 58 days on from the Winter Solstice, I arrived at February 18, 2015.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

In other words, if the clocks were put forward when the length of days was the same as the end of BST, we should have our clocks put forward on the Sunday nearest – February 18, 2015, which is Sunday, February 22, by my reckoning.

This is six weeks sooner than BST is due to start on March 29, 2015.

Why should we have to wait until the end of March? Think about it, six weeks of extra daylight in the evenings. It would be light in the mornings when children are going to school.

The Scots could hardly complain, since the days are the same length as when BST finishes.