Time management

In respect of Sasha Handley’s piece on alarm clocks (Q&A, February), mention might be made of the “knockers up” who thrived in the 19th and early 20th centuries in northern English industrial towns and places where the natural sounds of the countryside were absent. Using poles and pea shooters, they enabled mill workers to keep good time.

I have also had the curious experience, in a Majorcan village, of a church clock that accurately chimed the early morning hours, but repeated the process five minutes later for those who had missed the first chimes. JD Abell, Christchurch, New Zealand