There was an uplifting story from Grimsby in the paper this week. Their church clock has been stuck at the wrong time for 5 years – or rather, it shows the correct time only twice in every 24 hours.  This must be tremendously annoying, especially if it is stuck at a time approximate to the actual time when you glance up. For example, say it is 1.05pm and you are dashing to catch a train – a train that only goes every 2 hours, so if you miss it, you are in the dooh-dooh. You need to be at the station at 1.20pm, but since the clock has just reassured you that you have 15 minutes in hand, you stop to buy a coffee. The actual time is 1.15pm and the clock has misled you.  You miss the train. How enraged would you be?  Both at yourself and the reckless owner of the clock.

The estimate for the repair of the clock was £50,000. Who has £50,000 to repair a broken clock? The clock remained broken. That is until some bellringers were up in the tower fiddling with the bells.  They thought to have a look at the broken clock and discovered 3 dead birds caught in the mechanism.  Now even I know that a clock is unlikely to function correctly if it has a tangle of pigeon fouling its innards.  They removed the offending bits, gave it a squirt of WD40, the attention of their grease gun, and no doubt a swift tap with a heavy object, and the hands moved again. The younger member of the Repair Team then ran up and down the tower steps (the newspaper says 100 steps but they may be exaggerating) until all 4 faces of the tower showed the correct time. What a labour of love.  Job done they went home.

Since they had neither sought permission nor payment, no-one knew of their good deed.  Imagine the surprise of the church warden when he glanced up at his clock, expecting to see it showing the same time that it has offered for years, and he realised that it was now correct.  He must have walked around the tower and discovered that every face was synchronised and they were all correct. Divine intervention? A miracle?

I wonder how long the helpful ringers left it before they fessed up. If it had been me, I would have stayed quiet for a very long time and kept everyone guessing.

I did actually drive up to our tower and put a new battery in the ringing room clock about two years ago because it was doing that annoying tic-tic thing, and no one even noticed. They didn't put my name in the newspaper….