Letter: Time travel

Lesley Riddoch (Scottish Perspective, 20 September) repeats the idea that Scotland, and England, would be better with clocks set an hour later. However, this ignores an inconvenient truth - that the earth rotates around an oblique axis and the sun rises at different times at different seasons in different places.

Greenwich time was defined originally for convenience of navigating ships and later for co-ordinating railway timetables. Along the Greenwich meridian, the sun rises at 6am on about 23 March and 23 September. The further east you travel, the earlier the sun rises, and the further west, the later the sun rises. By the time you get to the Arctic Circle, for example in northern Iceland or Norway, the sun does not set at all on 23 June. In midwinter, the sun does not rise at all.

Given that, London is the standard, and is far enough north that one-hour daylight saving in the summer makes best use of the sun. Most of Europe now uses one time zone, though it is hard to see why this is necessary, since continental US uses four time zones, and the old USSR used 11.

Since London is the original standard, I now ask why England should wish to change from that time? The only explanation which makes sense to me is that most people have become used to getting up later and everyone is so out of step with natural time that we may have to adjust the clocks to suit.

ROD DALITZ

Frogston Avenue

Edinburgh