{"id":3814,"date":"2026-04-10T23:03:04","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T23:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=3814"},"modified":"2026-04-10T23:04:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T23:04:42","slug":"ftv-time-lord","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=3814","title":{"rendered":"FTV: Time Lord"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When Canadian actor James Doohan auditioned for the original <\/span>Star Trek<\/span><\/i> TV series, he was already a gifted mimic when it came to accents.\u00a0 He tried several different ones during his <\/span>Star Trek<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 audition.\u00a0 The show runners liked the Scotch accent he used the best.\u00a0 Doohan recalled in a 1991 interview that when he was stationed in Yorkshire, England during the Second World War, he served alongside a soldier who had such a thick Scottish burr, \u201cI couldn\u2019t understand a word he said for the first week we were together, but I loved listening to him talk.\u201d\u00a0 The Scotty character Doohan went on to play in numerous <\/span>Star Trek<\/span><\/i> episodes and films was described as \u2018an Aberdeen pub crawler\u2019.\u00a0 He said that his Scotty character\u2019s utterances were indeed based on the Scottish Doric accent prevalent to that area of Scotland.\u00a0 Some criticized it as \u2018not being authentic\u2019 but in the same interview, he recounted meeting a group of Scotts backstage after he had performed in a play in San Francisco.\u00a0 He had played a very English barrister in the play but his visitors said, \u201cYee god, man, we thought you were really a Scotch.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There was more to it than just the accent that made them mold the Montgomery Scott (\u2018Scotty\u2019) character as a Scot.\u00a0 In the book <\/span>Time Lord – Sir Sandford Fleming and the Creation of Standard Time<\/span><\/i> (Pantheon Books, 2000), author Clark Blaise points out that having the Chief Engineer on a starship be of Scottish heritage was also a tip of the hat to the numerous, \u201cSteamfitters, boilermakers, gauge-readers, and engineers of the world,\u201d who hailed from those shores.\u00a0 Fittingly, Blaise goes on to list more than a few who happened to emigrate (not just immigrate) to Canada before gaining world-wide fame for some of their accomplishments (like Alexander Graham Bell and Andrew Cundard).\u00a0 Even Doohan\u2019s own father had invented and perfected the process of creating high-octane gas in the western province of British Columbia back in the 1920s.\u00a0 Doohan had just a pedigree (to create the character of Mr. Scott) that was as authentic as his accent.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Before we get to the heart of this FTV, there are two more things we should note about <\/span>The Enterprise’s<\/span><\/i> Chief Engineer and his accent.\u00a0 When Simon Pegg took on the role in the JJ Abrams <\/span>Star Trek<\/span><\/i> reboot, the English actor did base his accent on the Scotch members of his family tree.\u00a0 He toned it down some at Abrams\u2019 request to help keep the dialog clear, but he still worked in many \u2018Scotty-isms\u2019 created earlier by Doohan.\u00a0 In one of the most recent spinoffs (<\/span>Star Trek:\u00a0 Strange New Worlds<\/span><\/i>) the actor playing the part (Martin Quinn) is a genuine Scottish actor and thus can not be accused of not using a convincing accent.\u00a0 I digressed a bit here, so let us get back to the story of another Scottish tinkerer of many talents, Sir Sandford Flemming.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Sandford Flemming was born in 1827 in the manufacturing town of Kirkcaldy, the son of a local contractor.\u00a0 Kirkcaldy was located on the north shore of the Firth of Forth across the water from Edinburgh.\u00a0 He attended six years of schooling before beginning an apprenticeship with a local land surveyor named John Sang.\u00a0 In 1845, Fleming and his older brother joined other Scotts who were embarking for ports around the globe to seek their future.\u00a0 They boarded the sailing ship <\/span>Brilliant<\/span><\/i> bound for Canada after paying the princely sum of 4 Pounds each for their tickets.\u00a0 Their fare promised them, \u2018a guaranteed daily quantity of drinkable water and basic uncooked rations\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Blaise points out there were many similarities between Scotland and Canada:\u00a0 \u201c[They were] two non-countries by the standards of Victorian diplomacy, unrecognized, even threatened, by their powerful southern neighbors.\u00a0 The exuberant reticence of the Scotch – sober, hardworking, calculation to the last penny – was particularly appreciated in the underpopulated void of autonomous colonies called British North American before the 1867 British North America Act that created Canada.\u00a0 Popular opinions of the Scotch were quite a bit more flattering than the general view of their fellow Canadian immigrants, the Irish and French.\u00a0 All had known poverty in their homeland but overnight, it seemed, they had been transformed into hardy transplants in Canada, the United States, or in England itself.\u201d\u00a0 In late life, Fleming would lament the loss of his distinctive accent (known as the \u2018north of Tweed\u2019 local dialect);\u00a0 only in Kirkcaldy was he still taken as a \u2018native\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Fleming\u2019s entry into the conversation about standard time zones was triggered by a misprint in a railroad schedule.\u00a0 He had arrived at the Irish rail line station at Bandoran at 5:10 p.m. on a bright July day in 1876.\u00a0 Halfway between Londonderry and Sligo, Fleming was there to catch the 5:35 p.m. Londonderry train.\u00a0 The station was unusually quiet, more so than it should have been for a station expecting an incoming train.\u00a0 He checked the schedule of his <\/span>Irish Train Traveller’s Guide <\/span><\/i>when the 5:35 appointed time came and went.\u00a0 The schedule said \u20185:35 p.m.\u2019, but when he checked the depot\u2019s big board, it placed the incoming train\u2019s time at \u20185:35 a.m.\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

The misprint in his traveller\u2019s guide cost him 16 hours of his life, but it also set the wheels in motion to change how time keeping would be done around the world.\u00a0 Today, in his home town of Kilcaldy, there is a monument with the inscription reading: \u00a0 \u201cSir Sanford Flemming, the inventor of standard time for the world.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0So how does one \u2018invent\u2019 time?\u00a0 Before the modern system was created, time keeping was strictly a local affair controlled by the Sun or other celestial bodies that ruled the night.\u00a0 A gnomon, (a stick stuck perpendicularly into the ground) was the earliest version of what would become known as a sundial.\u00a0 The simple stick in the ground sundial would be embellished over time and for the upscale, they became works of fine art.\u00a0 Fancy or plain, when the shadow cast was at its shortest, it was noon at that location.\u00a0 Before humans had the means to communicate with far off places, local time was more than enough to keep people happy.\u00a0 Only when communications and transportation between distant areas would the concept of local noon make time keeping more complex.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Fleming\u2019s entry into this complex topic of time came well after he had established himself in Canada.\u00a0 In 1849, he created the Royal Canadian Institute that was formally incorporated in 1851.\u00a0 It began as a professional institute for surveyors and engineers but eventually became involved in more general scientific interests.\u00a0 Working full time as a surveyor for the Grand Trunk Railway placed him in a position to become the Chief Engineer of the Northern Railway of Canada in 1855.\u00a0 One of the biggest contributions he made in this position was advocating for the use of Iron Bridges on the rail lines instead of those constructed of wood.\u00a0 His time with the Northern Railway was marked with conflicts with the general manager he would replace in 1855 (Fredrick W. Cumberland) who would later oust Fleming from that position in 1862.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a01863 would find Fleming serving as the chief government surveyor of Nova Scotia overseeing the construction of a rail line from Truro to Pictou.\u00a0 He refused bids he deemed too high and ended up bidding on and completing the work himself by 1867 (for which he saved the government substantial money and earned a good profit for himself).\u00a0 Fleming\u2019s plan for a transcontinental railroad from the Atlantic to the Pacific was put before the Canadian government in 1862.\u00a0 Construction of the first part between Halifax and Quebec was contingent upon New Brunswick and Nova Scotia joining the Canadian Federation.\u00a0 This project was also important when travel through Maine became uncertain due to the American Civil War.\u00a0 In 1867, Fleming was appointed as the engineer-in-chief of the Federal Intercolonial Railway project, a position he held until 1876.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In 1871, Fleming assumed the position of Chief Engineer of the Canada Pacific Survey which blazed the final brutal segments of the Canadian Pacific Railway.\u00a0 Though he was bought out of his Survey contract in1880, he became the director of the CPR and was present when the last spike was set.\u00a0 As busy as he was as a railway engineer, he is credited for, \u201cthe initial effort\u00a0 that led to the adoption of the present time meridians,\u201d according to our friends at Wikipedia.\u00a0 A paper he wrote in 1876 advocated for what he called, \u201c\u2018Terrestrial Time\u2019 which he proposed would use a 24 hour clock for the whole world, conceptually located at the center of the Earth and not linked to any surface meridian.\u201d\u00a0 He would later refer to this as \u2018Cosmopolitan Time\u2019 and then \u2018Cosmic Time\u2019.\u00a0 The 24 one-hour time zones he proposed would be lettered \u2018A-Y\u2019 while omitting \u2018J\u2019 and the zone labeled \u2018G\u2019 was arbitrarily assigned to Greenwich, England\u2019s location.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0From this rather confusing start, Fleming went on to refine his ideas in papers entitled <\/span>Time Reckoning, Longitude and Time Reckoning,<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Time-Reckoning for the 20th Century.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>The last pamphlet was published in the Smithsonian Institution\u2019s Annual Report in 1886.\u00a0 In the period between 1881 and 1814, he presented his ideas at international conferences like the Geographical Congress (held in Venice), a meeting of the Geodetic Association (in Rome), and the International Meridian Conference.\u00a0 It was at the IMC that a resolution was passed to mark the beginning of a 24-hour\u00a0 \u2018Universal Day\u2019 at midnight at the Greenwich Meridian.\u00a0 The conference added that, \u201cThe Universal Day shall not interfere with the use of local or standard time where desirable,\u201d while rejecting Fleming\u2019s time zones further stating, \u201cTime zones were a local issue outside the conference\u2019s purview.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Figuring out time, obviously, took time.\u00a0 There were many regions who wished to be the Prime Meridian before most agreed Greenwich was an adequate choice.\u00a0 A true 24 hour day would also be adjusted when the \u2018anti-meridian\u2019 of 180 degrees was set as the International Date Line, or the designated official start and end of the Universal Day.\u00a0 The IDL is a \u2018line of demarcation\u2019 where the date changes – a necessary device to allow for the coordination of the global time zones.\u00a0 Although it was established in 1884, it has no official international legal status meaning some nations (like Kiribati) have adjusted it to keep different sections of the islands that are part of their archipelago on the same calendar day.\u00a0 If one travels across the line from North America toward Asia, the day changes to the next day (e.g. – Monday to Tuesday).\u00a0 Traveling in the opposite direction causes one to revert to the last day (e.g. Tuesday goes back to Monday).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0By 1929, the idea of world-wide coordinated time zones had been accepted by all major nations.\u00a0 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is structured so that there are 12 time zones, each 15 degrees of longitude wide, extending from east and west of the Prime Meridian centered at Greenwich, England.\u00a0 Fleming\u2019s original 24 hour Universal Day is still reflected in the Military\u2019s preference to use a 24 hour clock.\u00a0 I have a vivid memory of visiting K.I.Sawyer Air Force Base near Marquette, Michigan with my buddy Jim and his dad.\u00a0 Jim\u2019s dad was a former flyer who was still working at the base as a civilian and he was afforded a great deal of respect as a pilot who had flown in World War I.\u00a0 When we were getting a tour of the base control tower, one of the airmen saw me looking at the clock on the wall noting the 24 hour day.\u00a0 He laughed and asked, \u201cI bet you never saw a clock like that before, have you?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Sir Sandford Fleming\u2019s name lives on beyond the historical markers in his hometown of Kilcaldy, Fife, Scotland and elsewhere in Canada.\u00a0 There is also an analemmatic sundial there that was unveiled at the northern end of the seafront promenade in 2022.\u00a0 In Canada, a town, mountain range, an individual mountain, an island, and numerous streets bear his name.\u00a0 Public schools and university buildings named after Fleming are too numerous to list here.\u00a0 Fleming notably designed the Three Penny Beaver Stamp (the first postage stamp for the then Province of Canada) in 1851.\u00a0 He has been commemorated on stamps bearing his likeness in 1977 and 2002 and with a Google Doodle in honor of his 190th birthday on January 7, 2017.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Fleming died at his cottage home near Halifax, Nova Scotia on July 22, 1915 at the age of 88.<\/span><\/p>\n

His was a life devoted to fine tuning the art of global time among his other engineering pursuits.\u00a0 I wonder how the Time Lord felt about Daylight Saving Time?\u00a0 If he felt that DST would have been fine to leave in place year round, I wish he had written it into his manuscripts.\u00a0 I, for one, would much rather have our northern Michigan daylight hours extended year round, especially during the long, dark nights of December.\u00a0 None-the-less, we have to tip our hat to Sir Sanford for his relentless pursuit of Universal Time.\u00a0 If you wish to take a deeper dive into his life, the book is now available at the Ontonagon Township Library.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Top Piece Video:\u00a0 Who better than to sing about time than The Chambers Brothers –\u00a0Time Has Come Today<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When Canadian actor James Doohan auditioned for the original Star Trek TV series, he was already a gifted mimic when it came to accents.\u00a0 He tried several different ones during his Star Trek\u00a0 audition.\u00a0 The show runners liked the Scotch accent he used the best.\u00a0 Doohan recalled in a 1991 interview that when he was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3814"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3817,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3814\/revisions\/3817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}