News

Collective Clocks

While mowing lawns can be rather tedious, the act itself can have a liberating affect; a sort transcendental meditation with grass clippings. It gives you time and space to think.

Some friends and I have recently been having fun making up collective nouns. You will be familiar with the common ones often quoted: A Charm of Goldfinches, or A Murder of Crows. Conservationists will be amused by: A Sneak of Weasels, and A Busyness of Ferrets. Inevitably the tone was lowered with great hilarity when some pseudo collective nouns emerged concerning prostitutes. How about A Jam of Tarts, or An Anthology of Prose!

This column is actually about clocks, so while reducing the height of my lawn, I wondered what collective nouns I could come up with regarding clocks. How about: An Alarm of Clocks, or A Cackophony of Clocks ( very appropriate for the Clock Museum), or A Stop of Watches. Perhaps you can come up with a few good ones yourself. Anyway, while you’re winding your dial, let me remind you that this coming Friday, October 1st is “ Have a Go” day, or the International Day of the Older Person. The United Nations have declared this day one to celebrate the Older person ( A Wrinkle of Oldies, perhaps, or A Baldness of Jokers).

On this day, Claphams Clocks Museum is offering free entry to Super Gold Card holders between 10am and 2pm ( A Stagger of Goldies?). Staff will have a special collection of clocks with a nostalgic theme entitled Nana’s Place. Clocks will include some of the following: A bedroom clock from the 1920s with needle point face. These were often part of a dressing-table set with mirror and brush of the same design.

The collective noun for our national Bird is A Tribe of Kiwi. A ratite relative is the Emu, and you can see this birds egg turned into a clock. Not exactly Faberge, but interesting all the same .Emus are from Australia, so would that be A Gob of Aussies? Something that only an eccentric English designer could invent is the Tea Alarm or TeasMade. I am looking at the 1946 instruction manual and it is quite mad. This contraption was supposed to do about ten things before you woke up in the morning. As I want to do a whole article on these crazy inventions, I will just say… An Electrocution of Tannin?

Anniversary clocks were once very popular, so named because they were presented on weddings and birthdays, and only needed to be wound once a year. The one in Claphams Clock collection is by Schatz, dated 1936. There are many, many more clocks to see in Granny’s Attic, as well as all sorts of activities at the Town Basin including art, music, fitness, and if you are really lucky, jelly-wrestling! So set your alarm for October 1st and show you can be A Riot of Wrinklies.