My Grandfathers Clock

Unlike yesterday’s contrived mash up of title and photo, this genuinely is my grandfather’s clock. Even better is that one of the many recorded versions of the song is by Johnny Cash. As we share the same surname, I am often asked “any relation to Johnny?” Sadly not, though my middle name is courtesy of my actual grandfather.
But I never knew him, as he died three years before I was born. In fact he did not even get to the age I am now, which certainly gives one cause to pause and think about the fragility of life.
I wish I had known him, as what I have been able to glean from the various photos and documents I found after my own father died, hints at an interesting life. Born a couple of years before the end of the 19th century, his place of birth is registered as Leicester. Which came as a bit of a surprise as our family is very firmly rooted in a small village near Chester - the local churchyard contains several generations of the family. The simple explanation is that he was the son of an itinerant builder who travelled the country with his family, and who just happened to be working in Leicester at the time of the birth. Rumour has it that parts of Downing Street in London were built by said firm, but I’m yet to find proof of that.
Like most men of his generation he enlisted as soon as war was declared in 1914. I was always told that he fought alongside Lawrence of Arabia but was inclined to think this was just another family “legend”. However, a photo album I discovered shows him in a desert, mounted on a camel, so maybe there is a grain of truth in the story. Certainly something to be followed up in due course. After the war he went into the family firm - he built the house I grew up in - but the recession of the early thirties eventually led to the firm ceasing trading and he finished his working life as a surveyor for the British Waterways Board.
He was a keen badminton player and the clock was presented to him by the local club on the occasion of his marriage in December 1928. The small chest it is sitting on was also something my grandfather owned and I “inherited” it when we sold my Mum’s house and she was slimming down all her furniture as she was going to live with my sister.
Although both he and my father are no longer with us, it does give a feeling of “belonging” to be able to look at, and touch, something that was present in both their lives.