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  • I'm standing on the Meridian line here at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich.

  • It's the place where East meets West on since the late 19th century, it served as the reference line for Greenwich Mean Time.

  • We're now weeks away from changing our clocks back as we say goodbye to summer and welcome in the winter.

  • Months onto this year will probably be fast asleep when time reverses at 2 a.m. on the last Sunday in October.

  • But what actually is the reason behind why we change the cocks?

  • And could it be a thing of the past, Theo saying, goes spring forward in spring for back in full.

  • So as of the 27th of October, the UK will fall back in line with Greenwich mean time.

  • So how did it will come about?

  • Well, we actually have Coldplay singer Chris Martin's great great grandfather to thank William Will.

  • It proposed the idea after his golf games kept getting cut short because the sun went down.

  • So he created a leaflet called the Waste of Daylight, encouraging people to get out of bed earlier so the summer sun wouldn't be wasted.

  • Germany was the first country to adopt the plan in April 1916 with the UK following suit a couple of weeks later, during the height of the first World War on.

  • Since then, other places around the world also jumped on the bandwagon.

  • Now 70 countries worldwide adopt some form of daylight saving, but the benefits of it has been an ongoing to date since it was first introduced.

  • Opponents say that by changing the clocks back, the mornings become darker and therefore make a potentially more dangerous Children who walk to school.

  • They also think it's not very good for our health by making people less productive if evenings a shorter.

  • But on the other side of those who believe that changing the clocks twice a year would make better use of daylight, especially for farmers, builders and other early rises other arguments for having British summer time that they could save energy that you otherwise use on electricity.

  • Andi might also help to reduce traffic collisions with better visibility in the evenings.

  • But the experts say that the energy savings from changing the clock's has only shown to be pretty large inal.

  • Despite this one argument for is the benefits of being able to share time zones and working hours with the European counterparts when considering things like trade, industry and finance, making the U internal market work more smoothly.

  • However, some of the main trading partners with the you like China and Russia don't actually work under daylight saving time.

  • Earlier this year, the you commission proposed to scrap D S t, meaning the practice of changing the clocks twice a year could be a thing of the past 5009 off.

  • Couldn't over patient Rygel Yeoman its sides?

  • It's not actually been agreed with the U parliament yet, but if it becomes a law, those countries who want to permanent summertime would adjust their clocks for the last time on the last Sunday in March 2021 on dhe.

  • For those who choose a permanent wintertime, the final clock change would be on the last Sunday of October 2021.

  • But just whether Britain will follow the use decision after the intended Brexit day of October 31st remains to be seen.

  • So we'll just have to stay in the dark a little longer.

I'm standing on the Meridian line here at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich.

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