Time running out as brothers seek cuckoo clock heir
A PAIR of brothers who are cuckoo clock enthusiasts are seeking someone to take on the world’s largest collection amid fears that it could be broken up and lost when they die.
Roman and Maz Piekarski have spent around five decades assembling 750 of the pendulum-driven devices, which are now on display at their Cuckooland Museum in Cheshire.
The siblings are both unmarried and neither of them have had children, which has caused them to start a search for an heir to take on their clock collection as a whole.
Roman said: “I’m 71 and Maz is 69, and we have not got anybody to leave it to. It’s the world’ s largest collection – we have 750 of them. It would be wonderful if we could get someone to take it on, it really would be.”
Roman and Maz said they had become fascinated by cuckoo clocks when they were teenagers and went into the trade as apprentices after leaving school at 15.
However, at the age of 28, Roman was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), a disabling disease of the brain and
‘When I got MS, I said to my brother, I’m going to stick to [this]. I didn’t want to burden anyone’
spinal chord, and he was given just three years to live.
From there, the brothers decided to travel all around the world hunting down the unique timepieces while trying to beat rival collectors from the US and Germany. But after amassing the world’s largest collection at their museum, in Tabley, Cheshire, they now have no sons or daughters to leave it to.
Roman said: “When I copped MS I said to my brother, ‘I’m going to stick with what I’m doing’. I wasn’t going to get married because I didn’t want to burden anybody. I was given three years to live but I’m still here today – 43 years on.
“For the past four years, I have been making small inquiries as to finding a body who could take it over but I’ve not found a single person who could come in and run it.”
Roman said he’d approached various people about taking on the collection but had not received any offers – despite getting praise from specialists and visitors. He added: “The British Museum got in touch with us, and they said, ‘if we could lift your place and put it in our place, that would be the best thing we could do’.”