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Dutch Clock January 2010

I have just finished the book The Timetravellers Wife. The concept of being able to travel in time and space has always fascinated people, and who hasn’t thought of being able to somehow return to another period and observe some momentous happening. Observe, perhaps, how they built the Pyramids, or (safely) be present at the Battle of Hastings. I have often thought of riding beside my grandfather at the Battle of Omdurman in the futile cavalry charge against the Mahdi’s forces, in which he lost part of his elbow to a flying scimitar!

At the Claphams Clock Museum is another time-traveller, a tower clock that has spent time on several continents before ending up, fantastically, in Whangarei.

Before I tell this tale of a peripatetic time piece, let us consider the role of time clocks in the community.

It was the First World War that democratized time and made it accessible to everyman. Wrist watches became compulsory for Officers and men, so they more accurately could know the moment of their death. “ Men, you will go over the top at precisely 7.45 am, and within moments you will be dead. Now syncranize your watches.”

By definition, tower or turret clocks were designed to be as visible as possible for all. Early tower clocks actually had no faces and were solely striking mechanisms. The striking bell rang out the hour, and sometimes parts of the hour, to be counted by those within hearing distance. The word “ clock” comes from the French word “ cloche” meaning a bell.

There are many famous clock towers around the World, perhaps the most famous being St Stephens Tower in London. This houses the Great Bell, known as Big Ben. Another is the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and down the road the Campanile in Venice. The earliest known clock tower was the Tower of Winds in ancient Athens, featuring eight sun-dials. It still stands to this day, and inside is a water clock, known as a clepsydra ( water thief) powered by a stream from the Acropolis.

They say knowledge is power. Being at the right place at the right time has changed the fortunes of many as well. Over the past ninety years our Claphams Clock story has seen a tower clock change places several times.

It all started in a small Dutch town called Nuenen. Its most famous citizen was Vincent van Gogh ( he of the starry night and hearing aid). Nuenen was also the scene of the battle of Operation Market Garden, where most of the soldiers dug their own grave in Sept 1944.

As you enter the Clock Museum, on your left is a rather ugly black structure that started life in 1921. The clock resided in a local church for the next eleven years until it was decided to gift the clock to a church in the Philippines. The shipping company , however, had other ideas, and it arrived in Dutch Guyana, South America. It was then put in a church in the capital, Paramaribo, and its endless clanging so annoyed the locals that it was dismantled and put in a box. There it stayed until a military coup kicked out the Dutch. While leaving, a Dutch official discovered the clock and took it back to Holland with him. A few years later he emigrated to NZ and, of course, brought the clock with him. He finally sold it to Archy Clapham. By now the whereabouts of the clock was a complete mystery to the good people of Nuenen. One day, a resident of that town and one familiar with the clock saga, happened to stroll into the Clock Museum. You can imagine his face as he recognized the long lost clock of Nuenen. The rest, as they say, is history.