During the experiment I was in my fourth year of apprenticeship. Working on site was no joke. We did not have the superb work lights they have today, we had Tilly lamps! The workshop was fine and well lit but site work was more difficult. I too think the time we choose should be permanent. The heating timer, car and other things self correct but it is still a pain doing the odd clocks etc that don't.

We did a job in Shetland a few years ago in July and I was there for a week or so. It was really weird trying to sleep in daylight, Even at 3am it was only dusk! Couldn't cope with that.

Cheers Concrete

The difference between sunrise/sunset on the east coast and in west Cornwall is about 30 minutes year round; the day length is broadly similar. I think Andy is right, it was the needs of the railway that led to 'standard time' based on Greenwich being adopted. Before that local noon was the determinant and Bristol time was different to London.

Still got clocks on ovens/microwave to alter. Need to dig out the instructions. Cars were easy enough as the Berlingo allows +/- adjustment and the Fabia has a 'Daylight Saving Time' adjustment in it's menu for date/time.

I've found radio controlled clocks a bit more temperamental in recent years. I suspect this is down to the closure of the Rugby Radio site, which I could see from just up the road, and the transmitter's relocation to Anthorn on the Solway Estuary.

If I recall, there was something very odd before GMT was established where 'local time' was used in the UK and passengers and staff travelling on trains (this was 19th Century I think) had to keep changing their watches and clock as they travelled along a longer route.

The spread of railways in the mid-19th-C made it necessary to standardise national time - till then every town or village worked to the church clock or sundial. It made no sense for trains which worked to a public timetable to visit places on different time systems.