What Is Official Time To Turn Clocks Back/ Forward ?

[planeloco]

ALL of my life I have been under the impression that our clocks OFFICIALLY move Back or Forward at 2am.
I have JUST been informed on TV that they go back / forward at 1am !

Have I been mistaken for OVER 50 years OR has some Official Body changed the Official Time ?

[Kathyan]

I think they go forward at 1am and back at 2am. It was news to me as well!

[rockyracoon]

I was under the imoression it was 2am

[Connemmara]

give or take one hour does it really matter for you to get into that official state.

[craft1948]

I've always thought it was 2am..............

[Mass_Hysteria]

I think in Spring 1 becomes 2 and in Autumn 2 becomes 1

[Sam1960]

i always thought it was before you went to bed !!

[Kathyan]

https://www.gov.uk/when-do-the-clocks-change

[rockyracoon]

Gov says what Kath says

https://www.gov.uk/when-do-the-clocks-change

[sherrardk]

I've already done my watch and the alarm clock (the other stuff re-sets the time on its own).

[DaisyNonna]

Hopefully I will be asleep at 1 and 2. Please don't grass me up to the Time Police.

[rockyracoon]

It's alright Daisy, you're secrets safe with us :)

[DaisyNonna]

Thanks awfully rocky.

[RATTER15]

Do other countries all change their clocks at the same time as we do in the UK?

[guilliebrougues]

I have always thought it was 2.a.m. but it does not matter anyway, I just put my clocks forward or back just before going to bed then I don't have the hassle the next day.

[237SJ]

Some do Ratter. I came back from the US today and the time change is -4 (normally -5) because they have changed their clocks. We will catch up tomorrow though and it will be back to -5. As far as I remember, there used to be a two week period when Germany and the UK were on the same time zone due to the timing of us both changing our clocks. Australia has Daylight Saving Time too. In fact, many countries do.

[237SJ]

Sorry, misread your post. No, we don`t all change our clocks at the same time. The time change can be staggered between countries.

[boxtops]

well, I never knew that, I always thought it was 2 a.m. either way.

[Jemisa]

Don't forget its SPRING - Forward &

FALL (autumn) Back. You'll always get it right then.

jem

[reinganum]

Methyl's link gives a comprehensive answer for everywhere. Briefly (to summarise) the whole of the EU and most of the rest of Europe change their clocks at 0100 GMT (the same as UTC) whatever time it is locally. So if we wanted to be precise we would alter them from 1am to 2am in the spring and in the autumn change them from 2am back to 1am.

Before we observed the EU times (I can't remember when this was but I think it was about 1980) we changed the clocks at 2am GMT (i.e. from 2 to 3 in spring and from 3 to 2 in the autumn).

As for recording TV programmes...this weekend I wanted to record a programme at 6 o'clock on Sunday morning. I correctly guessed that the TV station would still be operating on the old time but to be quite sure, I set the recorder to record from 5 to 7 (for a one-hour programme). Sure enough, when I checked the recording later, I found that the recording started at "5am" even though it was listed as 6am in Radio Times. If ever you want to do this on the night when clocks change (either way) always build this in as a safeguard.