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Bristol Post
Bristol Post
National
Andrew McQuarrie

What time do the clocks change and are they going forward or back?

It's that time of year again, with the summer reduced to fuzzy memories and your body now wrapped up in a thick jacket whenever you venture outside.

The moment has arrived for us to put our clocks back.

Residents in the UK have been carrying out this ritual for more than 100 years.

At 2am tomorrow (Sunday, October 27), we'll all be doing it again.

By putting the clocks back one hour, we'll be changing from British Summer Time (BST) to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

For many of us, this will mean we'll get an extra hour in bed tonight (Saturday).

And perhaps for some it will mean an extra couple of rounds in the nightclub.

The idea of changing the clocks first came from American politician and inventor Benjamin Franklin in the late 18th Century.

But the theory generated popularity in the UK thanks to Coldplay singer Chris Martin's great-great-grandfather.

In 1907 William Willett published a leaflet called The Waste of Daylight arguing the case for people getting out of bed earlier.

It was not until 1916, however, that changing the clocks was actually implemented in the UK.

Now our clocks go back one hour on the last Sunday in October and forward by an hour on the last Sunday in March.

If you have a smart phone, or other device, it should set itself to the right time automatically.

For the latest news in and around Bristol, you can check back on Bristol Live's homepage.

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