Clock Making - Background

Since a kid I've been fascinated with mechanical objects and a great urge to understand how they work. I remembered that at the age of around 11, I eventually plucked up enough courage to take an old alarm clock apart - one that I could justify destroying, as it had a broken main spring. The main spring was just broken at one end. The hole in the main spring that fits over a clip on the barrel arbour had cracked causing the spring to fly apart.

I crudely annealed the end of the spring and cut off the broken piece and drilled a new hole at the end of the broken spring (which was first annealed and then re-hardened in oil). I put the whole thing back together again and to my surprise the clock started ticking again. This gave me tremendous confidence to take apart some other broken clocks.

I remember going to the local library in my home town, Luton, and found a great book that had many illustrations and simple instructions on how to repair clocks. I became absolutely fascinated. I remember the book was called "Practical Clock Repairing" from Donald De Carle FBHI. It's a pity we didn't have the simplicity of the Internet in those days.Life could have been so simple.

The word soon got round and many friend, family and neighbours people soon remembered that they had an old clock that had stopped working and thought they had nothing to lose but to bring along and let 'young' Colin have a go at repairing it. "That should keep him out of mischief for a while", they would chuckle. Before I new it, my bedroom was full of ticking and chiming clocks.

When I was 14 years old I joined the the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme, and on Thursday 30th May, 1974, at 2:45pm His Royal Highness, The Duke Of Edinburgh flew to a local school (Redbourne school in Ampthill) by helicopter to meet DoE award members and their achievements and hobby's.

I was taking my bronze award at the time and came along to the event with a bag of old clocks and clock reparing tools and put them on a school desk. When the Duke walked around he spotted my strange collection of clocks and walked over to me and asked what I was doing with all these old clocks. He seemed quite impressed when I explained I repaired them. He suggested to find clubs and organisations that could help me further develop this unusual hobby, perhaps into a career. At the time I thought that clock repairing, as a full-time career, sounded rather dull. I wanted much more exciting and bigger things. Like building fast cars and aeroplanes. But 40 year later I wish I had taken his advice. It would have been a much more relaxing and possibly rewarding career. Nevertheless it's been nice to have kept clock repairing and clock making as one of my hobbies.

Here is a photo of the Duke and me. The picture was taken by a local newspaper who interviewed me.

Later this inspired my interest into mechanical design and a career into mechanical engineering.