CLOCK MAY RING A BELL WITH YOU
T OSSED in a box and sold at an estate auction, it could easily have been lost for good. But after a dedicated clocksmith discovered it, this beautiful Welsh heirloom could now return home – after it turned up 4,000 miles away in Mississippi.
Grandfather Benny Weeks found the majestic mantel clock, thought to be from the 1940s, and now wants to return it to the family of its original owner.
The clock is decorated with a plaque dedicated to renowned church bellringer J Arthur Hoare on his retirement from the British Transport Commission at Swansea Docks.
“I was working on a grandfather clock for a couple in Grenada in Mississippi and they traded me a box of clocks and parts that they had got at an estate auction,” said 64-year-old Benny, who recently rebuilt his workshop after it was destroyed by a tornado in 2010.
“I got home and started digging around and found this.”
Benny’s curiosity found him spending painstaking hours researching the clock’s origins.
“I just wanted to learn more about the man, what he did for his church and his family,” he said.
“When I take a clock and work on it I think of all the marriages and deaths and wars – everything that clock has seen. It’s like bringing it back to life.
“Life revolves daily around a clock and when you find one that has a name on it that’s special.”
Benny’s research led him to Wales, where a national bellringing competition is still held every year for the J Arthur Hoare Memorial Trophy.
The clocksmith also managed to find old records naming J Arthur Hoare as a bellringer in Tycoch in Swansea in 1965.
Benny thinks the clock could have come from an antique shop in Wales.
He said: “It was in perfect condition. It hasn’t stopped running and it’s got Westminster chimes.”
Now he is appealing to any descendants of Mr Hoare to get in touch.
The grandfather of seven said: “I feel with all my heart that this clock has got away from a family that would like it back – it belongs to them.
“There is someone who would love to have that clock back if it belongs to their father or grandfather.”
Benny doesn’t want any money for his work but wants to see a happy ending for the clock.
“I don’t want anything for the clock,” he said. “It’s romantic, it’s a love story for clocks.”
According to an obituary printed in bellringing journal Ringing World, J Arthur Hoare was Swansea’s oldest bellringer and continued his hobby up until his death in 1988.
He was born in 1897 and died at the age of 91, where he was buried in Sketty churchyard close to his “beloved” church bells.
His obituary reads: “Although he had not been able to ring tower bells for some years, he rang handbells only eight days before he died.
“He had very many friends among the ringing fraternity and it was quite usual to meet people from all over the country who wanted to know ‘How is Arthur?’”
The author of the obituary, Hazel Way, also described Arthur as a “very real” support when her stepfather died.
J Arthur Hoare was survived by his sister Madelaine.