The difficulty of saying goodbye to a good friend

Having had a longcase clock in for about 6 months right next to my work bench and hearing its tick-tock and its bell, seeing the shining beauty of its dial, hearing the rack fall... I notice how it has become a good friend. Oh, how difficult it is to say goodbye to it and bring it back to the customer. After I had managed to iron out all faults that the clock had when it was brought into my workshop and after I had made a new gathering pallet, strengthened the beautiful---but wobbly---rack arm, made a calendar wheel and calendar disk with flag, silvered the disk and then tested the clock for a month, it is a bit like saying goodbye to a child you have just delivered for the first time to a tiny cubbyhole of a room at university. It is one of those moments when the world feels like a tough place to live in.

Yet pride seems to overcome any feeling of sorrow. Pride, often amplified by the emotions shown by the customer when they welcome their clock back and see it running and striking again. In these moments, clients sometimes tell me the most amazing stories of how they grew up with this clock. Smells and sounds seem to come back to their memory which trigger further stories, often full of emotions and the odd tear. I feel privileged to have these moments with my clients and feel humbled to become part of the story of their clock as their "clockmaker". It feels I have done only very little, but it certainly is the beginning of a good day for me.

I wave goodbye to my friend the provincial longcase clock and close the client's front door behind me.

I hope I can remember these client stories to tell them one day to my grandchildren so these stories live on and so will illustrate the importance of people telling each other stories. I can now see how important it is to conserve heirlooms in order to be able to tell these stories and I can see how important it is that we keep the profession of clockmaker a healthy one, despite all the economic difficulties.

My phone rings. A distressed elderly woman tells me that her clock has now completely stopped working after she tried to shake it back into action. A new story is beginning to unfold.