Early to bed and early to rise, keeps a man healthy, wealthy and wise

What is it with journalists and their sleep? Blaise Tapp is not the first recently to complain about rising with the lark (16 November 16).

I don’t know how he would get on if he was made a ‘Today’ presenter on Radio 4.

We are told in a new book about the dangers of sleep deprivation. The answer is clearly for the individual to ensure he or she gets enough of it. As for ‘the zombie army trudging into work for 9 am every day’ – what nonsense.

In all the years I did just that, I never felt more alive at such a time of day. Nor did the other train passengers taking an alert interest in their daily newspapers.

The same was true in my last years of working when I was one of Eastbourne’s oldest newspaper delivery boys.

Up at 5 o’clock, job done by a couple of hours later and the rest of the day was clear for living. Now I’m told all that could have affected my health. Rubbish!

Sadly this is all of a piece with the way we are going nowadays. Snowflakery abounds, and not only with the younger generation.

We observe it in the automatic tears that flow on reality TV, in the inane audiences for The X Factor.

Is it any wonder that we are afraid for our lives if we go it alone from the European Union, forgetting our achievements over centuries pre-1973 without the help of that corrupt outfit?

There is in fact a case for saying we have lost our backbone partly because we do not pay sufficient attention to our sleeping habits. Let us get back to the old adage, with of course at least one modification to allow for today’s political correctness: ‘Early to bed, early to rise, keeps a man healthy, wealthy and wise.’