An Horologist's Tale
By
Tony Woo1ven
This
started off if I remember correctly, as a question from Martin asking if we had
let our house for the eclipse and being my usual (stupid) self gave him a potted
history of my life, to
My regret, he has
now asked me to elaborate and fill in some of the gaps, so I hate to bore you,
but here goes, the slightly longer version.
As you all must
know August 1999 will be a hectic time for Cornwall we are expecting an influx
of maybe 2.5 million visitors (mainly anoraks) just to watch the eclipse.
There is big business down here with house letting for the 2 weeks. We have
decided not let our house, mind you I feel it's a good idea, friend of mine has
let his (4 en suite bedrooms and 4 reception rooms, 2 bathrooms, garden and
pool) for £8,000 for a week, I might let ours and push off to the States for a
week or so, have to wait and see. By the way I am not Cornish, I was born in
Kent raised in the Midlands, went to school in Derby, then St Michael's, back to
Derby for a few months, then my parents sold their business and moved down here
when I was 16, 50 I suppose I am an adopted Comishman.
My life has not
been very exciting since St Michael's, in fact my complete memoirs could be
printed on the back of a postage stamp. At the tender age of 16 I took my first
job as an office boy with a local removal company, (at the amazing sum of £3.5s
per week, well it was 1963), worked my way up the ladder and lefi in 1969 for
pastures new.
One quick funny
for you, when I started with the company they were also undertakers. Well, I had
been there 4 days, when the boss came over to me and said "Mr. Woolven, we
are one man short tomorrow, and we would like you to assist at a funeral, black
suit, shoes and tie, with a white shirt please." Panic from me, well with
some borrowed clothes I came into work, full of trepidation, only to be greeted
by half of the staff all standing inside the door, laughing like mad, yep, I had
fallen for the old initiation trick, took a few days to live it down.
Sadly that company
like so many sold out to the big conglomerates. So in 1969 I moved to Cardiff,
went from job to job, sewing machine salesman to debt collector, and everything
in between, I tried the lot.
In
the early 70's I got married had 2 children, got divorced, got married again
(2nd time very lucky) and moved back down here, even went back to work for the
old company, but of course the 'big boys' had changed everything, so at 38 I was
made redundant. Well, work down here is a pretty scarce commodity, so in 1986
having job hunted for a while I started my own business in a very small way, and
have not looked back since. I now have 3 small organisations.
(1) Time Capsule, selling new watches at the middle to lower price bracket, plus we do watch and clock repairs, and make some items of jewellery. (2) Time Honored, we specialize in buying and selling second-hand, antique and collectors quality watches and clocks, (wanna buy a Rolex mister), and (3) The British Watch & Clock Collectors Association, formed in 1995 to fill a large gap in the market.
So
as you see I am kept very busy, but I enjoy it, found that little niche for
myself almost 15 years ago and am very happy.
My
wife Kate is a lot younger than me and is a College Lecturer and Course
C~ordinator at Truro College, we live in a 3 bed detached in a pleasant little
village 5 miles out of Truro, no mortgage, no debts, my hobbies are my car,
she's my baby, (Mercedes 300 SE), quality wines, good food, and fly fishing for
trout, don't eat them myself, give them away to friends. We both like to travel,
and usually go to the States for a couple of weeks every year, Kate's mum lives
in Florida, so we always end up there, next month we are off again, this time
via Toronto for a change.
Oh!
Almost forgot I have had my 15 sec's of stardom, well actually around 2 hours on
local Radio, I bored listeners on a couple of occasions talking about timepieces
and the like. And wow what was it 20 minutes on TV, fought a big developer,
trying to build 71 shops in Truro, and I won, recorded it, but forgot and taped
over it, hahahahahaha! A totally BORING life, sorry, but that's the way we like
it.
Very
best regards to you all
