Today's Article

CNN Correspondent: Ian Westworth and Alex Jeffrey are part of a small team of 1clockmakers at the Palace of Westminster in London. Twice a year, when the clocks spring forward or fall back across the United Kingdom, they have the 2responsibility of 3adjusting 2,000 timepieces before 4lawmakers return to work. 

Alex Jeffrey: There's 2,000 clocks on the 5Parliamentary Estate, there's 500 6heritage clocks, there's two days and it's our task to perform the 7GMT time change. 

Ian Westworth, Clockmaker, Palace of Westminster: We have clocks here that 8predate this palace and some that were 9designed specifically for this palace. We do actually come across clocks that we've never found before. It only happened the other week. An 10MP contacted us saying, I've got a clock in my office, it hasn't run for some time. And I'm thinking, I've been here 18 years and I've never been into your office. He said, that's probably why it hasn't worked. 

Alex Jeffrey: The time changes were put in 11initially as a 12mechanism, a 13practical mechanism to take advantage of daylight hours in the summer. So it's important, I think, to keep that tradition. 

CNN Correspondent: In the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill 14championed the concept of 15daylight saving during the First World War, before he became Prime Minister, believing that the country could save energy by stretching the hours of evening sunlight. The practice has spread across the world. In the US most states 16observe daylight saving, moving clocks forward in the spring. Only Hawaii and most of Arizona don't. In the UK a 2019 17poll showed that a small majority of Britons want to keep changing the clocks. At the Palace of Westminster its resident clockmakers are responsible for maintaining this tradition. 

Ian Westworth: Even with this digital world, everybody's got a computer with a clock at the bottom or they've got a digital watch on. But the MPs and the Lords or the staff who've actually got a ticking clock in their office, one of the first things they look at is the ticking clock and not the one on the wrist. Our job is to make sure that every day these clocks are working for them. The last clock of the day before doing great clock tonight.