EILEEN’S TIMELY TALE
AS fans of the popular BBC show The Repair Shop know, it’s the sentimental value behind family heirlooms that make them such treasured items. Often they are lying in a drawer or an attic, broken and half forgotten, in need of some expert care to bring them back to their former glory. This is exactly what happened when Dundalk native Eileen Bradley asked local watchmaker Owen Gray if he could fix an old watch which had belonged to her mother. The challenge was all the greater as the watch had been lost for many years and then discovered buried in a garden!
Eileen, who lives in Lowestoft, East Anglia, made friends with Owen through Facebook. She told him about it at his famous O.G cabaret show and dinner dance when she was home in December 2018.
‘He worked a miracle,’ says Eileen who was delighted to be able to wear the silver watch at last year’s event.
The watch was very special to Eileen as it had been presented to her mother, who had her own dance band, when she was just twenty years old. The inscription on the back reads ‘Presented by A.O.H. Haggardstown 1923’ and Eileen remembers that it came with a piece of paper which said
It had been presented to ‘Miss Maura Fitzpatrick for having the best band in town.’
‘My mother was a very well known musician,’ says Eileen, who has kept up the family tradition. ‘ She had a big dance band , a seven piece orchestra, and was a music teacher.’
The orchestra was much in demand to play at soirees organised by Dundalk’s society folk and also in dance halls such as the Plaza, the Market House, Cocklehill Hall and the Wellington Hall.
It was at a dance that Maura met her future husband, Anthony Bradley after he had gone up on stage to sing, and after a long courtship they got married in 1937 and moved to Hyde Park.
‘She was a brilliant classical pianist and also taught the accordion,’ recalls Eileen. ‘Whenever I come home to Dundalk, I meet people who say that my mother taught them,’
The watch was lost for about 25 years, and was discovered sometime in the 1940s, when the garden of Eileen’s grandfather’s house at 71 Barrack Street was being planted with potatoes.
It was hardly surprising that it didn’t work, and the watch lay in the bottom of a drawer for decades.
After her mother’s death in 1991, Eileen says she couldn’t throw the watch out and took it back to England with her. ‘I took it to goodness knows how many jewellers and watchmakers but couldn’t get it fixed.’
She joined the Dundalk North End Photos and Friends group on Facebook and made friends with Owen Gray. ‘ He said he had learned music with my mother and then I found out he had a
Eileen’s mother Maura Fitzpatrick
jewellery shop. I told him about the watch and he said for me to bring it with me next time I was coming home.’
She was thrilled when he was able to repair the watch, using spare parts that he had collected down the years. ‘He worked a miracle,’ says Eileen, adding that he had even put a similar strap to the original on it.
When asked to go on stage at the O.G. Cabaret last December, she shared the story of the watch, before singing a song.
Eileen has inherited her mother’s musical talent and plays the accordion and also writes songs, some of which have been recorded by Brendan Shine and Mike Denver.
A regular visitor to Dundalk, she is frequently called upon to sing and play a tune.
Owen says he was delighted to be able to repair the watch which had belonged to Eileen’s mother. Now semi-retired from the business he set up with son Alan at Goldstar Jewellers, he enjoys fixing old watches.
He went to work for Duffner’s Jewellers when he was just over fourteen years of age and found that he had a real talent for the work.
‘It became a passion for me from the word go,’ he recalls.
Owen then went to work for Walter Feddern, who came to Ireland from Germany after being held as a prisoner of war and opened a shop in Dublin. While there, Owen ended up repairing a watch which belonged to film director John Houston, who was working at Ardmore Studios at the time, and to racing driver Rosemary Smith.
He came back to Dundalk and set up his own business,first in Bridge Street and then in Church Street. As well as repairing watches and clocks, Owen make his own watches, assembled from parts imported from Switzerland and Germany, and also made gold jewellery. As quartz battery watches took over from the traditional mechanical movement, Owen studied the Seiko manual, learning how to repair these new watches.
The recession of the ‘eighties brought a new business model and a new location.
‘I always had my eye on the Demesne Shopping Centre, as someone once said to me that the heart of a town will never die, so when I got the chance to get a shop there, I took it.’
‘We opened a discount shop there, making all our own jewellery,’ says Owen, who by that time was joined by his son Alan. Alan is now in charge of the shop and makes jewellery, while Owen takes a back seat. He still enjoys the challenge of repairing old watches, drawing on his stock of vintage parts which he has accumulated down the years. At one stage he carried out repairs for antique dealers in Hatton Gardens, but now he will only repair a watch when he knows the owner will appreciate it.
Owen, of course, is also well known for his role in organising the hugely popular O.G. cabaret shows, which have raised thousands of Euro. for charity over the years.
Owen has been organising these cabaret, dances and talent shows for three decades, donating all the proceeds to local and national charities.
‘It’s a total pleasure,’ he says. ‘I love entertainment and I enjoy my life. It’s happy days when you enjoy what you are doing and can help others.’
The same motto applies to his skill as a watchmaker, as he takes great pleasure in getting old timepieces working again. Like all watchmakers, he leaves a mark inside the case when he repairs a watch so that others will know that he has repaired it. ‘I’m proud of my work,’ he says.
His skill also brings pleasure to others as he brings treasured heirlooms back to life.