I WAS saddened by the self-centredness of Robert Craig (Chronicle, Letters, November 1) in his desire to retain BST all year. The chaos of having different time zones within a country as small as England seems to have been ignored. He has not thought about national organisations like television or railway and coach timetables. I wonder if he was aware that a trial of retaining BST all year round between 1968 and 1971 which was found to have no real advantage.

He also seems not to realise that the number of hours of daylight will still reduce in winter even in the south of England. This year the last day of the school term, December 20, with GMT sunrise in Southampton is 8.05am and sunset is 4.01pm. This gives us twilight in the morning as 7.25am and it will be evening twilight at 4.40pm. So if we retained BST the sun would not rise until 9.05am and it will set at 5.01pm. The ‘extra’ hour in the evening will barely make any difference to anyone going out in the evening, but we would have children going to school in the dark, with all the dangers of crossing roads etc. I think it is more important that children get safely to school (and most get home in the light) than adults have a little light in the sky when they leave their work.

Does he really think King Alfred would have cared about an hours change to the clock? They did not have precise timepieces in his day so would have been guided by the natural sun rise and sun set not any artificial clock.

I like the light evenings of summer too but know that retaining BST will not make winter evenings light.

Janet Kearns,
Boyatt Wood,
Eastleigh

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