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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Letters

Time for us to start clocking off early

Daylight saving time concept - retro alarm clock and dandelion flowers in the grass
‘It’s not the clocks that need to change, but us,’ says one reader on the idea of daylight saving time. Photograph: Wavetop/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Mike Parker (Letters, 21 March) writes in support of the UK moving the clocks forward an hour permanently. It appears to be a reasoned argument, but I am less sure. There are so many hours in the day and no legislation by any government can change this.

The challenge is to use the hours more efficiently. Our habits have allowed us to get out of bed some hours after sunrise, and then go to bed some hours after sunset. This wastes a lot of electricity to light our homes when we should be letting the sun do it for free. We just need to go to bed earlier and get up earlier. Dolly Parton may have worked 9 to 5, but if she wanted to get more daylight she needs to work 8 to 4. Midday should be just that, and midnight the same.

In short, it’s not the clocks that need to change, but us. Ten o’clock for the main news of the day is too late – we should all be in bed then. And get up at daybreak. It’s what we human animals have evolved to do.
Steve Seddon
Market Drayton, Shropshire

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