Enjoy an extra hour of sleep tonight as the clocks go back

Britain can enjoy an extra hour of sleep tonight (Saturday) as the clocks go back one hour.

British Summer Time (BST), which operates between March and October, is coming to an end, with the clocks 'falling back' to give us an extra hour of daylight in the mornings in autumn and winter.

The time change always happens on the last Sunday of October in the middle of the night and on a weekend, to cause least disruption.

The clocks will go back at 2am, meaning the minute after 1.59am will be 1am again.

Similarly, the clocks go forward on the last Sunday of March each year.

The country will now enter Greenwick Mean Time (GMT).

The idea was first thought up by Benjamin Franklin in 1874 when he thought it would encourage people to get up earlier in the mornings.

The UK government adopted the practice in 1916, following a campaign by builder William Willett who wrote about it in a pamphlet entitled Waste of Daylight.