I think I’ve mentioned before that I am a bit of a horologist.  I love time pieces and in particular old time pieces, grandfather clocks being my favourite.  To avoid discrimination though, I’m not adverse to grandmother and granddaughter clocks, no misogynistic biases here.  I wonder why there are no grandson clocks, probably due to some hidden bygone feminist agenda.  I do love a wind up.

So why the love of clocks, well I’m sure some of it has to do with my propensity to logic.  Old clocks are mechanical, none of this new fangled electronic circuitry and consequently it is possible to see how they operate.  When a clock doesn’t work, there is always some logical reason why this is so, and a logical approach needed to fix it.

This then gives me the opportunity to investigate, explore the mechanics of the clock, work out how it ought to operate and set about repairing it.  In doing so I am often handling a mechanism that is over a hundred years old, in the case of my current project, nearly three hundred years old. 

There is a sense of wonderment in handling all the parts. Some appear quite rudimentary and yet other parts such as the cogs are precision pieces.  Many of the parts are made by hand but clearly some are made by machines albeit fairly crude ones.  How the makers managed the precision required to ensure that cogs mesh freely baffles me.  What is clear though is that the makers of the clocks were skilled artisans and possessed skills that I dare say have all but been lost over the years.

Messing around with clocks (I can’t say I do more than that) also allows me to delve into history.  The clock I’m currently tinkering with only has an hour hand, no minute or second hand.  Whilst the hours and half hours are clearly marked on the dial, where you would normally expect to see minutes, the hours are simply divided up into quarters.  A bit of social history, people didn’t have a need to know minutes, they were predominantly only concerned with the hour.

My pride and joy, a grandfather clock, dates to the 1830s. When I took it apart I found several dates and a name scratched into the back of the face plate.  The dates related to when it had been serviced and by whom.  I was servicing a clock that had been handled by someone over a hundred and fifty years previously. I bet they weren’t standing in a nice warm house drinking a hot cup of coffee contemplating how to service the clock. We take so much for granted and I guess the clocks allow me to reflect on what it was like when they were made and how lucky we are now. Although I do also wonder whether simple notions such as not having the need to concern ourselves with every minute might not be better for the soul.