The Tyranny of Time

Out on to the  story cafe table came the stuff from our pockets; like a visit to the police station. I contributed a pocket watch with chain. A genuine family heirloom, an antique pocket watch with quartz-controlled precision timing.

            I took to using pocket watches because I didn't like to wear a wrist-watch during the summer heat. It made my arm hot and uncomfortable. I had never liked to wear them loose and have them sliding about. A pocket watch takes longer to consult, but causes no discomfort and is satisfyingly traditional. A bit like wearing your grandad's weskit.

            It transpired that quite a few of those present no longer wear wrist-watches. Alison said that she uses her mobile phone instead, so doesn't need one. It seems they are on the way out. A good thing too, as they were a horrible invention. Easy to break, and an invitation to crime. Unless you wore a cheap one, in which case people would think you were destitute, and doormen would refuse you admission to posh hotels.

            When did it become de rigueur to carry the time? In the good old days public clocks would sound out the time every quarter of an hour, and that was considered quite sufficient. Before that, nobody cared. Now we are obsessed by the time, enslaved by it even more than by any other instrument of control. Except for those who are wearing a tag, of course. Was it the need to catch public transport which forced us into subjection to the clock? Or was it the invention of the factory clocking-on device? The factory owners were happy to dock a quarter-hour's pay for one minute of lateness. That certainly put pressure on people to know the exact time. In the Clydebank shipyards after World War 2, you were allowed five minutes to go to the toilet, with the foreman timing you with his watch. A few seconds over and you would be fined half-a-crown, a substantial sum in those days. So by then the time tyranny already held full sway, at least over some people.

            Did radio broadcast time checks institute the new era? Before that, how did people synchronise their watches? Perhaps not very accurately. Presumably public clocks  could be used, but how were they set? A puzzle which was solved by discussions at the next week's story cafe, where Greg told us that the time wasn't well standardised across the country until the railway system was developed, when the train companies started sending electrical time signals through their signal lines.