Dear LPG readers, 

I am hoping that LPG will publish my little poem one year from the day that I wrote it so that it reminds us of something that we so often forget when it comes to this time of year.  The television news will let us know that the clocks go back tonight and so many of us will not ever remember what we did with the extra hour that we have been afforded. 

Most of us will sleep right through and not even notice the extra rest that we have had, but I have looked up a few statistics and learned something.  When I did work I was one of the 27% of the UK workforce that regularly worked through a good chunk of each night.  

I think that we night workers are the only people who really notice the hours in our days.   We tend to learn to see the night time in a less abstract way and for anyone who has worked through the night on a regular base at any time in their lives, the only difference is the darkness.   During my lifetime I have perhaps worked more nights than days and, even though I don’t have an alarm in the mornings anymore.   I still regularly get up and do my best work in the early hours, even though this idea was introduced in the UK to make working in a factory easier for some reason.    

I don’t work anymore but I still find that all that shift work leaves me up early in the mornings and, even though I don’t really need to acknowledge that extra hour, today is the day and I found myself awake and trying to be constructive during the 50 or so extra minutes that are left of this year’s gift of extra time.   

It is obvious that I am no poet really because sadly, it took me the whole hour to pen the lines that follow.  But I dedicate them to all the night workers and ex night-working pensioners who find themselves awake during the duplication of the first hour of today…  

That Extra Hour… 

What will you do with this year’s extra hour? 
Will you get up less tired, with a little more power? 
Will you eat a bit more and be a bit more fat?  
Or spend the whole hour just stroking your cat?  

Will you spend a bit more time with the man upstairs? 
Will you dwell on what’s to come and say a few prayers? 
Will anticipation and the positives come to the fore? 
Will you think about what makes you rich or what makes you poor? 

Will you watch a bit more telly or a DVD? 
Or spend the time dreaming about what you could be? 
Will you sleep right through and wake up fresher next day? 
Or will you nod off while the hour just dissolves itself away? 



MB, Lewisham.