Summer Hours? BST Leads To Londoners Working MORE

If you’re still struggling to snatch back that hour of sleep stolen from us on Saturday night, here’s an even more depressing piece of news for  you: Despite heralding the start of the summer, springing the clocks forward also leads to us Londoners working longer hours.

While we may think of the annual clock change as heralding the start of summer, blue skies, light evenings, and good times, it actually appears that the average Brit is not looking forward to it, or automatically planning how we’re going to use those extra hours for fun. In fact, the majority of us actually end up working even more than we do in winter!

In a survey by online lighting superstore, Scotlight Direct, 1,000 people revealed their thoughts and feelings around the time change. And it turns out that, far from knocking off early to take advantage of the sunshine, on average, Brits actually do an extra 2.04 hours of work. It seems that when it’s lighter, later, we’re more reluctant to make a dash for the exit than if it was dark (when perhaps it would be harder to see if we were sneaking out early…). In fact, less than a quarter of us say we work less during summer hours. And over a third of us (36%) are not actually in favour of Daylight Saving, for a whole host of reasons.

The biggest bugbear we have is that the mornings are darker. Almost half of us (48%) resent having to get up when it’s practically pitch black, hoping to stay in our warm, snuggly bed and hibernate some more. Then the fact that the sky is still pretty blue by the time it’s our usual bedtime means we don’t actually feel tired, which then impacts on how much sleep we get. More than a quarter us admit to loathing not feeling sleepy when it’s time to go to bed. And for those with kids, it’s even worse! It’s hard enough getting them off at the best of times; 15% of us dislike that they’re awake for longer, causing even more mischief. And for the anti-social amongst us, 6.5% resent feeling pressure to go out and do stuff in the evenings.

But despite our strong feelings about it, not that many of us actually know the reasons why Daylight Saving was actually introduced in the first place. Half of us believe it was to do with farming (so farmers could do their work when it was light), but only 22% of us know that it was introduced in WW1 in order to save fuel.

 “It would seem that whilst many Brits love the start of BST, for obvious reasons, the time change isn’t always a good thing!” says Andrew Fraser from Scotlight Direct. “Clearly there is a link between the lighter evenings and the feeling of having to work longer because of it. Sometimes a cosy evening inside with the family is what you crave after a day at the office.”

But while this may be true, today’s sunshine is putting a positive things for all of us here at Belle About Town. So to buck the trend and start British Summertime properly, we’re all heading out for an early finish and a few mojitos in the sunshine. We’ll see you at the bar!