Let’s all use the next leap day to raise money for good causes

This old English rhyme dates back to the 16th century, if not further, and serves as an aide-mémoire to remind us of the quirks of the modern calendar, devised by Julius Caesar almost 2,000 years ago.

The most accepted of many versions goes as follows:

Thirty days hath September,

April, June, and November;

All the rest have thirty-one,

Save February, with twenty-eight days clear,

And twenty-nine in each leap year.

Just in case you never mastered the rhyme in childhood, the knuckles – and ‘valleys’ – of the hand are just as useful for calculating the number of days in a month. The only problem is, once you’ve grasped the rule for counting knuckles if a month has 31 days and valleys for those with 30, you could have looked up a calendar on the internet, even in areas with slow broadband connection.

Caesar must have been a pretty clever chap, because in the two millennia since he invented the Julian calendar the number of days in each month has reminded the same.

However, the most commonly used calendar is the Gregorian version, so called because in 1582 Pope Gregory XIII made a few changes to correct a miscalculation around the leap year which, if left unchanged, would have eventually caused the seasons to shift.

We can thank a Roman emperor for giving us an extra day every four years and an Italian pope for preventing summer turning into winter. Alas, the author of the mnemonic rhyme still in use today has been lost in the mists of time.

If you ever wondered why Easter falls on different dates with no consistency, the fault lies with Pope Gregory. He designed his calendar so that the vernal (spring) equinox fell on or as close as possible to 21 March, and that Easter Sunday should be celebrated after the 14th day following the full moon.

According to this model, our common calendar year is not 365 days long but 365.242374 – and rising. So, in addition to the extra day every leap year, further adjustments could be required in the future.

Having a 29th day in February every four years is all well and good, but Joe and Josephine Le Bien Public don’t benefit from it. We don’t get an extra day off work, but at least it is not as bad as being born on leap day. If that misfortune befalls you, you either get a party once every four years or change your date of birth to 1 March.

What we do get in leap years are the Olympics, the European Football Championships to keep football fans going until the next World Cup and the American presidential elections, though in the case of the latter, the long drawn-our process begins early in the year before, to stretch out for what seems like an eternity. There is, it must be said, a great deal going for snap elections.

As with any significant date in the calendar, leap day is seeped in tradition. It is, most famously, the day when the fairer of the sexes may propose to the man of their dreams. Temps passé, if a man declined a proposal he had to pay a forfeit from planting a kiss on the cheek of the object of his rejection or by handing over money or enough silk to fashion a gown.

In Denmark the price of rejection was 12 pairs of gloves. In the county of Dorset the price of a lady’s humiliation came far cheaper: just one pair of gloves, to be worn at Easter.

Moreover, in making her proposal the lady had not only to wear a red petticoat, but was expected to flash it at the object of her affection.

Putting aside the science of calculating the calendar and the history and traditions surrounding 29 February, this extra day should not be allowed to pass us by without serving some good purpose. It is simply another day of toil, keeping the wheels of the economy turning relentlessly in the pursuit of profit in a world obsessed with money and proving to be so inept at managing it wisely.

With just 15 days left to decide which resolutions to observe in 2012, how’s about this for a starter for ten: donating that extra day or its monetary equivalent to a good cause?

I don’t claim ownership of such an altruistic gesture, because it has been done many times before. As a comparatively well-off society with so many charities and a range of community, sporting, environmental, cultural and educational initiatives crying out for support, there should be no excuse for not putting leap day 2012 to good use.

If you can’t afford to give a day’s pay, then donate one hour’s worth; if you can’t get the time off work, then offer an evening or a weekend as a volunteer. And if you aren’t free that day, then at least make a pledge on 29 February to do something to help others over the course of the year.

At the least, as leap day falls on a Wednesday next year how’s about businesses and schools holding dress-down day to raise money for chosen charities?

Let us all who can afford to and are able to, make a concerted effort to use the extra day to do something worthwhile for others less fortunate than us.