Daylight saving starts tomorrow and clocks go forward by one hour at 2am. To avoid confusion, the easiest way to decide in which direction to change your clock is to memorise this seasonal mnemonic – time springs forward in March and falls back in October.
The notion of daylight saving was first mooted in 1907 by British builder and keen horseman, William Willett. When riding his horse in Petts Wood, close to his home town of Chislehurst in Kent, one glorious sunny summer morning, he was surprised to notice how many houses still had their blinds down. This prompted Willett to publish a pamphlet entitled The Waste of Daylight and propose that clocks should be advanced by 80 minutes in the summer. He soon gained the support of a young Winston Churchill, and the outbreak of war in 1914 furthered his cause and led to the adoption of the initiative in May 1916.