Britain took the first steps towards metrication 50 years ago.
On 24 May 1965, the President of the Board of Trade announced to Parliament that the nation would turn metric, and aim to complete the conversion by 1975.
But we’re still waiting for metrication to be completed in what is a very British mess, trying to juggle both metric and imperial units, including, of course, in reporting, and sometimes in forecasting, the weather.
We have millimetres of rain but cling to miles per hour for wind, and still Fahrenheit hangs on for dear life even though Celsius is king.
Even more confusing, news stories pick and choose metric or imperial at will. A heatwave of 100F seems more sensational than 38C, and a freeze of –10C is more chilling than just 14F. A flood of 3ft high sounds worse than one metre, and for some reason an inch of rain is more convincing than 25mm. What we’re left with is a confusing mish-mash.
The strange thing is that the idea of simplified weights and measures is nothing new. Magna Carta in 1215 made a bid for a unified system of measurement with the words “let there be one measure” for wine, corn and cloth throughout the realm.
But the British were always suspicious, and especially of metrication – it was, after all, born out of the French Revolution and smacked of something dangerous to our way of life.
And it will probably take a good deal more effort before metrication is fully accepted in this country.
Twitter: @metdesk
