New Zealand and then Sydney will lead in the New Year festivities. The fireworks and celebrations will start in the east and by the hour, the world will catch up on 2012.
On January 3, Greenwich will emerge from its hangover and be proclaimed a Royal Borough by the Queen- Caroline Crutchley
International travel uses a standardised 24-hour clock that keeps us all synchronised. For every 15 degrees of longitude, there is a one-hour time difference, whether east or west of 0° 0’ 00’’. This system makes the world work, but what would happen to international travel without this order? Chaos!
I stood astride the Prime Meridian line that runs through the Greenwich Observatory’s courtyard. This is where time begins. However, before 1884, the world was in time chaos with many countries having their own time zones. It must have given the intrepid travellers a headache.
As international commerce grew, time synchronisation was needed. After much political wrangling Greenwich, the bustling port in London, became the spot where Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) began.
It was in 2011 that the UK government considered doing away with summertime and throwing its lot in with the European time zone. The northerly Scots stubbornly out-voted the idea. The poor souls would not have seen light until after 10 a.m. in the winter.
If it had passed, Geneva would have been the guardian of timekeeping with an accurate but boring atomic clock. New Year would not have been the same without the resonation of the Big Ben bongs.
On January 3, Greenwich will emerge from its hangover and be proclaimed a Royal Borough by the Queen. The royal connections go born in Greenwich, along with his daughter, Queen Elizabeth I. St Alfege Church in Greenwich Village was where Henry was christened.
From Tudor times, it has been a maritime port and I arrived on board the City Cruise boat, after gently gliding down the Thames from Tower Bridge.
At Greenwich Pier, I first glimpsed Christopher Wren’s fine building, the Old Royal Naval College. Painted in 1752 by Canaletto, the misty view seemed to have not changed much with the centuries. The perfect symmetry of the building and twin domes mimic his more famous St Paul’s Cathedral.
On land, a statue of Sir Francis Drake, the great British explorer, guarded the entrance to the visitors’ centre. To my right, workers were busy restoring the famous clipper Cutty Sark that was devastated by fire in 2007. The 85-metre long wood and steel clipper will be reopened to the public next year.
‘Discover Greenwich’ was an ideal starting point, with interactive displays offering an insight into the history of the area. The Old Royal Naval College is now partly used by university students, while the Painted Hall is famous for the decoration that took James Thornhill 19 years to complete. Originally intended to be a dining hall for naval pensioners, it was deemed too grand for them, and it was to this stunning hall that the body of Admiral Lord Nelson was brought to lie in state in January 1806.
The National Maritime Museum is a place to get lost in for hours. A volunteer regaled me with a potted history of Lord Nelson in the shadow of a showcase containing the uniform that he died in. The gunshot hole on the shoulder was still visible.
On the upper floors, the sextants and measuring devices of time and degrees were there to marvel at. The great explorers of the 1500s were intrepid and daring, and their travel would have been impossible without the ingenuity of science.
As I walked through the gold and black gates of St Mary, I made my way uphill, walking the meridian line, through the wooded park full of dog walkers and grey squirrels to the Royal Observatory. Zero degrees longitude runs to the far reaches of north and south poles from this very spot in the courtyard. The golden galleon wind vane moved with the wind. Inside the observatory, the prime meridian was explained.
Outside the gates is the Shepherd 24-hour clock that always shows GMT and was one of the earliest electric clocks built in 1852. In 1866 the iron standard yard, foot and inch were added below. It was a long trek uphill for merchants to check their measure sticks.
Below me the village meandered. The famous Greenwich Market is full of individual stalls and vintage clothes shops that draw the shoppers. University students fill the pubs through the day and night; this little village is a small piece of London, much overlooked.
The London Olympics will also come to Greenwich; the Olympic torch will begin its journey through London from Greenwich on July 21 and Greenwich will host the equestrian section in the park grounds. While there I walked past a very green area of grass being lovingly tended and assumed it to be the show jumping arena.
From the Light Railway station, I glided away on the driverless train towards the futuristic landscape of Docklands and Canary Wharf, from the place where time really does begin.