The
Strange Old Clock
“My Grandfathers clock was too large for
the shelf so it stood ninety years on the floor.
It was taller by half then the old man
himself, but weighed not a penny weight more, Tick, Tock, Tick Tock….” and so these are the immortal first
lines of that old song “My Grandfathers Clock”. The Song never really meant a
great deal to me as a child, other than a nice old song to sing along too, as
we sat around the piano with the teacher at school. But now I often think about
the meanings between the words and how they signify the link between man and
time.
Time, ticking, the swinging of a
pendulum, as it slowly ticks away the seconds of life, they are all linked
together by an invisible thread that strands together the thin cloak between
reality and dreams in the inner thoughts of our deep dark consciousness. We
cannot stop the clicking of the clock or the passing of time.
Clocks, watches and time pieces
have always fascinated my father and me, but it was one particular time piece
that was to have a strange eerie unreal effect in relation to my thoughts on
that strange twilight world between life and death.
I have never considered myself as a
person who is very easily scarred or affected by things that go bump in the
night. I have often spent many long hours searching derelict buildings or
graveyards for missing or even possibly dead persons, more often during the
hours of darkness. I have walked along lonely mountain ridges in pitch black on
my own and faced large crowds of angry people baying for blood to wild drunks
branding shotguns, so it’s so strange that an event that happened when I was
just eleven years old still makes me shudder and look over my shoulder in those
quiet moments when I think about the events of Friday 26th April
1968.
Just after my
mother and farther married, my grandmother gave to my mother a Grandmother
clock. This clock was about three feet long, made of wood with an old fashion
cream coloured clock face and black Roman numerals around the edge. A long gold
and silver pendulum would relentlessly swing side to side, minute after minute,
hour after hour, day after day. Tick tock, tick tock, ticking away the years of
our lives. The clock which is much smaller than a Grandfather clock is designed
to go on the wall and that’s exactly where it went, on the wall in the hall of
our small house.
The clock has two coil springs, one for
the time piece and one for the chime, the latter is suppose to chime every
quarter of an hour and on the hour. However the old chime spring on this old
clock had long since been broken, thus apart from the odd clang, the clock
hardly ever chimed.
As I said, the clock was fixed on the
wall in the hall of our house, near to the staircase leading from the front door
and up to the landing. No one ever gave the old clock a second glance or a
second thought, as it slowly ticked away. The only person who ever paid the old
clock any attention was my father, who made it a daily task to ensure that the
clock never ever stopped.
My Grandparents who lived sixty miles
away were your stereotype grandparents. My Grandmother was as round, as my
Granddad was thin, He wore a collarless shirt with a waist coat and she always
had a large flowery print dress with an apron tightly tied around her waist.
Their house was a treasure trove of
oddities and many a happy hour was spent in my Nan’s front room either drawing,
playing, or listening to my Granddads tales from his days spent at sea. Nan
would bring in a plate of rock cakes and a glass of sparkling orange in a
lovely old glass with oranges printed on the side. It was always a weekend
treat to visit my Grandparents and since we moved away, that treat had become
less and less over the years.
After spending all week at school it was
nice to be looking forward to the weekend. Nothing special had happened that
day and at around six in the evening we had not long finished tea. My sister
and I were both playing a game of jacks at the bottom of the stairs in the
front hallway of the house. Jacks are small five pronged metal objects, and the
object of the game is to bounce a small rubber ball off the floor and pick up
the jack, catch the ball before it dropped back onto the floor. I however
wasn’t very good at this and thus spent more time spinning the jacks like
spinning Tops, then actually playing the game. After about half ”n” hour
playing this game the old clock on the wall in the hall suddenly gave out a
loud clang and then it started to chime. My sister and I both looked at
each other and for some unknown reason which even today I cannot give a answer,
we knew we both had to count the chimes, dong, dong, dong, dong went the clock
on an endless endeavour of chimes. After twenty chimes we both looked at each
other puzzled, but kept counting, thirty went by and my mother came in looking
at us as if we had performed some strange trick to get the clock to chime,
forty went by and then fifty went by, Dad put his head around the door also
looking puzzled, the clock however still relentlessly chimed away at a very
even and steady pace. We counted sixty-nine, seventy, then on the seventy-first
chime the clock stopped chiming, the final chime of the night had been made.
Both my sister and I excitedly blurted this number out to mum and dad who
though puzzled had once again returned to watching the telly in the living
room. Neither gave the number a second thought although my father was still
astonished and very puzzled, this was due to the fact he knew that it was
impossible for a broken spring to do this. There was no reasonable explanation
to account for the actions of the old clock on that evening.
The following morning being Saturday,
all but my Dad who had gone to work, where at home. The morning appeared no
different to any other, a little overcast but dry and I was sitting watching TV
in the living room. My mother was in kitchen going about her daily chores when
my sister shouted “Mum there’s a police car outside” In those days a police car
was not the common sight they are today. When a police car came down the
street, curtains twitched and necks craned to see where they were going. The
Police car stopped outside our house and two very smartly dressed police
officers placed their peaked caps on their heads and walked across towards our
house. We all looked at each other very puzzled and thinking all sorts of
things other than the actual message that the Policemen were actually bearing.
They arrived at the door, tapped lightly on the knocker and my mother very
nervously opened the door. The two Police officers stepped inside the hall and
after a few brief minutes my mother suddenly burst into tears. A few minutes
later the two Policemen left, returned to their car and drove off. My mother
then took my sister and I into the living room and sat us down on the sofa,
explaining to us that Nana had been found collapsed on the kitchen floor and
that she had now gone to heaven. My Grandmother had in fact died of a massive
heart attack that morning aged seventy one years old.
A few days later whilst staying at my
Grandparents house, I remember the hearse pulling up with my Grandmothers
coffin inside, although I was considered too young to attend her funeral, all
at once I realised I would never see her again. As all the family followed her
to her final resting place I went and sat in the garden, sitting there watching
the chickens feeding I quietly wept. Another chapter of my childhood had
abruptly come to an end.
The old clock never did chime again, but
I do still have the two old glasses that my Grandmother gave me sparkling
orange or dandelion &burdock in.
What happened to the old clock? My
sister has it; I don’t think I could sleep with it in the house just in case
the chimes,
once again signalled the coming of
!!!.....