Green leaves are clinging to Clapham's trees but as the British well know, however leisurely this year's amble through autumn is proving it will like roads to Rome lead us to the shorter days and chilly nights of our Northern Hemisphere winter.

Readers of our daily column Clapham Breakfast Briefing will have noticed sunrises creeping later and sunsets climbing forward.

But beyond the helpful old adage, 'spring forward, fall back,', knowing when the clocks will change comes in handy this time of year.

When do the clocks change?

In the UK, the clocks go forward one hour at 1am on the last Sunday in March. Come autumn, the clocks go back one hour at 2am on the last Sunday in October.

The period when the clocks are one hour ahead is called British Summer Time (BST) or Daylight Saving Time. Germany was the first country to adopt the idea of 'summer time' in 1916. The UK followed suit a few weeks later, as did many other nations involved in the First World War.

When the clocks go back, the UK is on Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

Campaigners seek a return to a permanent British Summer Time – backbench MPs even attempted to change BST recently but The Daylight Saving Bill 2010-12 was not passed by the House of Commons.

Opponents point out that residents in the north of the UK would be disadvantaged. In the far north-west of Scotland, sunrise would come about at around 10am in winter, leaving many children to face walking to and from school in darkness.

The debate rages but for the time being, clocks will continue to go back and forth.

This year, our clocks go back on Sunday, October 31.

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