It's That Time of the Year Again.

.

.

Oh I do wish they would leave our clocks alone.

.

.

A corner of my 'Clock Room'.

"British Summer Time."

Many Britons suppose that this device is a grand British gift to the civilized world, eagerly accepted by all. In fact, only 30 other countries, out of the 362 listed in the 1964 Admiralty Nautical Almanac, follow our 'folly'. That is a mere 8%.

The rest of the world, if it wants to get up early.... gets up early, without tampering with the clocks.

So should we.

This thing began in 1916 by a Mr Willett, who during the second year of the War, introduced it to conserve fuel and artificial light. It was also applied during the Second War from 1941-45 and in 1947 we had to endure "Double Summer Time"....a move forward of TWO hours.

The British, of all people, should not do this thing.

They should be too proud of Greenwich, and the place of Greenwich Mean Time in astronomy and navigation, to abandon it for six months.

My cats got up at the same time for breakfast this week as they did last week.

And so did I.

Now let's see what music I have about clocks.

How about "My Grandfather’s Clock”.

Now I do actually have my grandfather’s clock. It is late Victorian alarm clock…and how do I know? Two reasons, firstly, a repairer has put a date inside when he worked on it and secondly, it plays “Soldiers of the Queen” as an alarm instead of a bell.

The Queen of course, being Victoria.

.

.

Now I expect everyone has heard the song “My Grandfather’s Clock”, the one that ‘stopped short, never to go again, when the old man died’.

It was of course not a mantle clock but a Longcase clock.

The song was written by the self taught composer and lyricist Henry C Work (1832-1884). The story goes that in 1874 he was visiting England and stayed at the George Hotel in Piercebridge near Darlington. He noticed that the Longcase clock in the hall was not going and found out from the proprietor the story of why this was so.

Early, that century, the Hotel had been owned by two brothers called Jenkins. The clock had been bought to mark the birth of the eldest son, some 90 years earlier.

The clock had an eight-day movement and had always been extremely reliable, however when the younger brother fell ill and died, the clock started to lose time.

It got worse and worse until it was losing over a quarter of an hour a day.

Then a couple of years later, the other brother, who was nearly 90 was taken ill and died at five passed eleven.

At this exact time the clock downstairs stopped.

New people took over the George but the clock defied all attempts by experts to get it going again.

Henry Work was so intrigued by this that he thought of writing a song about it.

The rest is history, as they say, but since Work published his song, most people refer to Longcase clocks as “Grandfather Clocks” and I believe this old clock still does not go and still shows the time, as five passed eleven.