“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 its 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 to 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 !!!..... |
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The Strange Old Clock
