Clocks move forward an hour this weekend as we move into British Summer Time, so although you may lose an hour of precious kip you will have the benefit of longer and brighter spring and summer days ahead.

British Summer Time was first established by the Summer Time Act 1916 after a campaign by builder William Willett.

His original proposal was to move the clocks forward by 80 minutes, in 20-minute weekly steps on Sundays in April and by the reverse procedure in September - which on the face of it is a more confusing way than a single hour switch.

In 1916 BST first began on 21 May and ended on 1 October, however Willett never lived to see his idea implemented, having died in early 1915.

Double summertime was implemented during the Second World War as an energy-saving device, effectively putting the country on the same time as mainland Europe and this continued until 1947.

Goverments have played around with time ever since. In 1968 a three-year experiment was conducted with the country keeping the clocks fixed on BST throughout the year.

However, the dark winter mornings proved highly unpopular, especially in Scotland, and politicians reverted back to the system we use today.

And for a bit of advance notice for your diaries, we revert back to Greenwich Mean Time on October 31.