The Rotary Club of Anstruther was delighted to welcome visiting Rotarians to its 9th September meeting, including District Governor Jim Houston with his wife Liz. It was a particular pleasure to welcome Jim and Liz, hailing as they do from the neighbouring club of Leven; which was the founding club for Anstruther, well over 60 years ago now.

Jim gave a short but very relevant address about hopes and plans for his year in office leading the ‘District 1010’ area of Rotary in Britain and Ireland. Geographically this District stretches from the northern shores of the Firth of Forth, to the Shetland Isles in the north, and the Hebrides in the west. It includes 89 Rotary clubs and over 3000 Rotarian members.

Following Jim’s address club member Eric Dewhirst gave an illustrated talk on the topic of ‘sundials’. This topic came about because of the need to find something to replace a very overgrown Formium plant in his garden and, having enjoyed such an excellent Summer, it seemed like a good idea!

Eric covered the theory of sundials, using reference material from the British Sundial Society, and made the point that a sundial does in fact provide a correct indication of time as the Earth pursues its journey around the Sun. The ‘clock time’ that we are now accustomed to being a ‘mean’ or average time dating from the development of railways – Greenwich Mean Time being adopted in 1847.

We also heard of the long history of sundial use from ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek and Roman civilizations to Islamic Caliphate cultures and on to post-Renaissance Europeans. The Greeks, with their knowledge of geometry perhaps doing more than most to develop accurate designs.

Today with extremely accurate clocks and watches readily available it is interesting to note a resurgence of interest in sundials with many societies existing to promote their use and with modern designs that are aesthetically pleasing, accurate and easily related to ‘clock time’.        

A vote of thanks was proposed by club member John O’Neill.