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Retired couple shun GMT in favour of their own time zone

Jim Casey and his wife Barbara have reset their clocks to WARP – Winter Adjustment for Retired People

Katie Grant
Friday 19 February 2016 00:21 GMT
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A retired couple in Cumbria have shunned Greenwich Mean Time
A retired couple in Cumbria have shunned Greenwich Mean Time (Getty)

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The man of the hour?

Jim Casey, a retired hotelier, from Heversham, Cumbria, has shunned Greenwich Mean Time in favour of what he and his wife Barbara call WARP – Winter Adjustment for Retired People.

Your winding me up.

After returning from holiday in Tenerife, the pensioners realised they so enjoyed being one hour ahead of GMT they decided to reset all their clocks for good.

What do they get out of it?

The couple claim that observing WARP allows them to avoid crowds and traffic jams and enables them to secure a table in their favourite restaurants. Now that they no longer conform to “government time” they never have to worry about being late, either.

Time waits for no man…

Mr Casey, 74, is thrilled with the perks of creating his own time zone. “We find it great, it makes the day a bit longer,” he told The Telegraph. “We are on continental time and we can never be late.” He added: “You’re always an hour ahead of everyone else so you never queue.”

Hasn’t GMT has served us all well, though?

“I don’t like being told to do things by government – they robbed us of an hour of daylight without asking us,” insisted Mr Casey. Several of his friends have joined WARP too, he added.

The clocks are due to go forward next month, aren’t they?

Not on Mr Casey’s watch – he is committed to WARP. “I won’t put the clocks back,” he vowed. “When government time catches up with us we might even move forward again.”

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