Thinking about Eastercon this week reminded me that this year is the
30th anniversary of Skycon, which I think was the first Eastercon held
in the Heathrow vicinity.
I was living in central London at the time, and I remember I could take
the tube to the new Heathrow Central station and then walk through a
foot tunnel under the main north runway to get to the hotel.
By the time of the next Heathrow Eastercon in 1996, that tunnel had
been closed to pedestrian access, and you had to take the hotel bus to
get to the con. And I see from Orbital's website that there is still
no pedestrian route from the airport to the hotel, but the hotel is
within a free travel zone on the buses in the area.
Skycon started on Good Friday 1978, 24th March, and my diary for that
year tells me that the clocks went forwarded for the start of British
Summer Time the Sunday before the con. This year, the clocks go
forward the Sunday after the con, 30th March.
It seems that up to 1980, BST started the Sunday before the vernal
equinox, but then changed to the last Sunday in March. It's not
uncommon for the clock change to occur the Sunday of the convention,
but I think this may be the first Eastercon to be entirely in the GMT
period.
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