the clocks go forward ,here is an interesting few words on who thought of the idea William Willett was the man who introduced the idea of Daylight Saving Time in Britain in 1907. He was keen to prevent people from wasting vital hours of light during summer mornings. Willett (who, incidentally, is the great-great-grandfather of Coldplay lead singer and 'Clocks'-writer Chris Martin), published a pamphlet called 'The Waste of Daylight' in a bid to get people out of bed earlier by changing the nation’s clocks. Willett proposed moving the clocks backwards and forwards by 80 mins, setting the clocks ahead 20 minutes on each of the four Sundays in April, and switching them back by the same amount on each of the four Sundays in September, a total of eight time switches per year. Supporters for the proposal argued that such a scheme could reduce domestic coal consumption and increase the supplies available for manufacturing and the war effort during the First World War. Willett spent the rest of his life trying to convince people his scheme was a good one. Sadly, he died a year before Germany adopted his clock-changing plan on April 30, 1916, when the clocks were set forward at 11pm. Britain followed suit a month later on May 21.