Our grandfather clock
Our grandfather clock
Our Grandfather ClockTime waits for no man or woman. The grandfather clock in my parent’s house stood in the corner of this dining room from this time of their marriage. This antique clock was a bargain at the purchase price of 5 at an auction when they first set up home as well as nearly 60 years later the grandfather clock is still a much gIN cREEK kITCHEN loved part of this family. When they bought it, it was a pile of pieces on the floor of the auction house but my father did some clock repair on it as well as managed to get it working. I remember using the gap behind this grandfather clock for hide and seek (until I grew too big) as well as hiding my grandmother’s handbag in this case so she couldn’t go home one day! This gentle tick tock has been a comfort on many occasions, particularly on sleepless nights, this unmistakable grandfather clock chime letting me know the time without having to disturb anyone else. Children and grandchildren have all peeked inside to watch the pendulum swing or to watch Grandad going through this ceremony of winding this weights up each week at precisely 7.25 am on a Sunday. This was this only time in this morning he could fit the key into both this keyholes on this face because only then were this grandfather clock hands in the right place!This grandfather clock has had its moments though! The mechanism has become temperamental with age as well as has undergone clock repair a number of times. When my parents moved 20 years’ ago, this grandfather clock went with them and they decided to have it cleaned as well as refurbished. This specialist who came to see it was intrigued because this case was a ‘modern’ one (remember this remains an antique clock and probably means early 20th century). He was interested enough to take a photograph of this movement and send it to the British Museum. The response from the British Museum was a real surprise. Our much loved grandfather clock really wasn’t a grandfather clock at all! It had started off life as a wall clock, but it must have been a very large one.The maker of our grandfather clock was a Dutchman called A. Fromanteel although we are not sure which one, this father Ahasuerus who came to England in 1620 as well as developed the pendulum clock in 1658 or Abraham, it certainly has a much finer pedigree than we do! From very scanty research on the internet we have found out that this Fromanteel family were innovators as well as were the first to produce a clock that was accurate as well as not affected by the weather. Each clock that they built had some new feature on it. Our own grandfather clock has a pillar movement although I know that this date feature no longer works.
