BACK TO THE FUTURE!
ASHBOURNE’S Millennium Clock has started to go backwards, prompting the mayor to quip he wished we could return to 2019. Engineers are to check the St John Street clock for the fault.
ASHBOURNE’S Millennium Clock appears to have gone a bit Cher – who had a massive hit with If I Could Turn Back Time – after its hands mysteriously started running backwards.
The clock, which has stood in St John Street for more than 20 years, is quite literally taking the town back in time after the horological irregularity was first noticed at the weekend.
The landmark’s owners Ashbourne Town Council were unaware of the sudden bid for localised time travel, and say they will contact their engineers, who are on a three-year maintenance contract, to get the clock’s mechanism looked at as soon as possible.
And Ashbourne’s mayor Sean Clayton initially reacted to news the clock was winding back the years with a sense of joy. “Oh please take us back to 2019”, he joked. “It was such a nice year.”
But then he swiftly added: “Oh, no, actually, we don’t want to repeat this year at all.
Let’s not do all that again.”
2020 has been a devastating year across the country, as the coronavirus pandemic took away our freedoms, led to mass unemployment and has affected the health and the lives of thousands of people.
And while Ashbourne’s infection rates have remained relatively low, w, the virus’s impact on the community has been severe, e, and has led to a disappointing series of cancellations of some of its favourite events.
W hi lee Shrovetide 2020 just slipped ped through the net as the early stages ages of the pandemic developed in the far east, Ashbourne Festival, Ashbourne Show, Ashbourne Beer and Cider Festival and Ashbourne Soapbox Race were among some of the big events that have been missed out on this year.
Mr Clayton, who organised the first soapbox race in 2019 that attracted 7,000 people, joined the News Telegraph for a tongue-in-cheek look at what we would like the Millennium Clock to take us back to, should its hands continue to keep turning backwards.
He said: “I think it’s fun to take this opportunity to look ba back, parti ticularly at t this most testing of times. “What I I’d like to go back to mo most of all, is a an overall sense of community. Where everyone is lu lumped in together.
“In the past Ashbourne has had the carnival, and the highland gathering, things like that, which involved the whole community putting things together and making things. There really was a sense of community. I can remember unlocked doors, and going around your neighbour’s for tea when your mum wasn’t in after school.
“I do think there’s still a great sense of community among people who have been here for a long time, but in another way we seem to be becoming a commuter-belt town for people from out of Ashbourne.
“They’re living here, but going to their jobs out of town. I don’t think they’re shopping here much, either.
“They keep saying the world is getting smaller, but we seem to be travelling to everything.
“I’m hoping the coronavirus situation might start to bring people back to their high street and their community, to get involved with things, once we’re out of the lockdowns.”
Ashbourne resident Stuart Green, who alerted the News Telegraph to the Millennium Clock’s mysterious fault over the weekend, says he spotted the problem while waiting to buy groceries outside Fresh Choice, opposite the clock.
He said: “I first noticed that the clock was wrong. I was then surprised to see that it was actually going backwards.”
We asked Mr Green what he would go back to in Ashbourne.
He said: “I’m generally someone who looks to the future, not the past, but it would be great to go back and visit the old Methodist Chapel that used to be in Compton, or to be there at the opening of the railway through Ashbourne, or at one of the first Shrovetide football matches.”
We asked visitors to our Facebook page what they would like to see brought back to Ashbourne, if we were to actually travel back in time.
Oh please take us back to 2019, it was such a nice year... except we would have to relive 2020!... Sean Clayton
Here are some of their ideas:
The weekly livestock market
● Waitrose
● The Carnival
● The Highland Gathering
● Black’s Head sculpture
● Dorothy Perkins
● The Duke of Wellington pub
● White Hart pub
● Town’s council offices
● The Cob Stop
● Bright’s Chippy