Meet the Bridge of Earn Woman Who Changed Her Clocks Back a Week Late and Has Been an Hour Early for Everything Since
Elsie Patterson, 74, turned her clocks back this morning. She says she's 'never been so punctual in her life'.
A carriage clock, set to Elsie time. Photo: Johann Andreas Thelot, “Mantel clock MET DP333812”, via Wikimedia Commons, CC0
Elsie Patterson, 74, from Bridge of Earn, has just discovered that the clocks went back last week, not this week, after she changed every clock in her house at breakfast time today.
“I thought it was the first Sunday in November,” she said. “I’ve always thought that. It turns out that’s America. So I’ve been running an hour ahead for a week. I was very confused about why the post was so late.”
Elsie said she had arrived early for everything since last Sunday. “I was an hour early for church. I was an hour early for the hairdresser. I was an hour early for my friend’s coffee morning and helped her put the cups out. She said it was lovely, but I could see she was still in her dressing gown.”
Her neighbour said Elsie had been the most punctual person in the street. “She was at the bus stop at quarter past eight for the quarter past eight bus,” he said. “Except it was quarter past seven. She just waited. She said it was nice to see the sunrise.”
Elsie says she has now fixed everything apart from the cooker. “I’ll leave that one,” she said. “It’ll be right again in March.”
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Letters to the Editor
The views expressed are those of the reader, and frankly that's on them.
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I’m her neighbour. I went round on Wednesday for a cuppa and she’d already had her tea. It was three o’clock. Her three o’clock.
— Stan B., Bridge of Earn, 1 November 2026 -
I did the same in 2011. Turned up for my hair appointment an hour early, and they still made me wait.
— Joan M., Perth, 1 November 2026
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