My father collected antique clocks. I recall that when I was a child my father would open the glass door on the grandfather clock that stood near the front door entrance in the hallway of our house. He would hand me what seemed at the time, a huge butterfly key and then lift me up and insert the key first on the left side and then on the right side in the centre of the clock dial to wind up the mainspring which he helped me to do. The Roman numerals always caught my attention and I would stare at them for a while. I recall that he had a four hundred day clock and as the name implies it was only wound up once every four hundred days.

Occasionally, my father would give me an old brass clock and some tools to dismantle it. Invariably, the steel mainspring snapped my finger as I undid screws that held it in place. It was probably the best thing he ever did for me and I enjoyed spending hours dismantling a brass clock and putting it back together again.