THE CLOCK TOWER
The Clock Tower in Crest Bay was built in 1852 by Anne White a local philanthropist; it was free standing, about 110 feet tall and used to be powered by clockwork; it had huge weights that had to be cranked or wound up every week. There was a ladder all the way up inside and a small platform that could seat just two men. There were two little wooden doors on either side at the bottom of the tower for entering. Every six months or so the same two men had to oil and maintain the encasement as the Clock Tower was right on the seafront and put up with all sorts of weather, especially in the winter. The two men, I forget their names, let’s call them Bill and Ben for the convenience of this story. Well Bill and Ben used to live at either end of Crest Bay, Bill used to go home for his lunch as he lived that much nearer, and Ben used to bring a packed lunch and a thermos and stay in the tower to eat. One day, during its six monthly maintenance, Ben had just began to eat his lunch on the tower’s floor when one of the weights detached itself from the mechanism and plummeted to the floor, striking poor Ben cold dead! The two men worked for the council and the local council deemed that Ben should NOT have been in the tower at the time during his lunch break and so compensation could not be paid to his wife and two children. That, it seemed, was that! The mechanism was fixed, the weight replaced and all seemed to be well…except from the time that decision by the council was made things appeared to go wrong! The clock struck thirteen when it should have struck twelve, it struck five instead of three, not only that but the hands appeared to move of they own accord…fast, I mean VERY fast. Experts were called in that fitted the clockwork mechanism in the first place, but they could find absolutely nothing wrong! Then the clock started ringing every half an hour, then every fifteen minutes! The people living on the front complained that it was unbearable and keeping them awake at night. The strange thing was that every morning they found the door to the tower open and sandwiches strewn about the floor, where the sandwiches came from nobody knew! Was somebody trying to tell them something?
Meanwhile at Ben’s home photographs of him and his family went missing and turned up at the tower amongst the strewn sandwiches! Mrs Ben had strange dreams of Ben ringing the clock tower bell and the message: ‘that as long as the council refused to pay her compensation they and the residents would have no peace!’ The council didn’t believe her and had her house spied on in case it was she that that was causing all the mischief, or maybe was paying somebody! This of course was laughable. They even had two constables posted outside the Clock Tower and STILL the bell sounded at all hours and STILL the sandwiches were thrown about and the door opened! A special meeting of the local Urban District Council was held and they agreed to pay Mrs Ben compensation, a small compensation of just £25 pounds! The Clock Tower continued to play up and the council was forced to PAY up and raised the compensation to £75!
