A brief history of timekeeping

“At the third stroke, it will be one thirteen and thirty seconds. Beep beep beep.”

I should sleep. I should be asleep.

I remember the exact - or should that be the precise? - details of where and when my relationship with the Speaking Clock began. Of course I do. It hardly requires the scientific skills of crystal oscillation. I couldn’t have been anywhere else but hanging on the end of a telephone.

And as for the time …

“At the third stroke, it will be one thirteen and forty seconds. Yes, you should be asleep. You really should be snoring soundly and snoozing sedately. You have double geography in the morning with Mr Woolway, and you know that he takes a peculiarly sadistic delight in standing behind you, exhaling his onion fumes onto the back of your neck, and shouting at you like some absurd caricature of a Victorian schoolmaster. Beep beep beep.”

You’re right. He hates me. Hates me because I’m quiet. He thinks my silence implies that I know something he doesn’t. Which I don’t. I know nothing of the sort, and certainly nothing that’s remotely related to geography. Later this morning, I shall prove it. We have to read out our homework, and I am going to thoroughly embarrass myself because I really don’t know one single useful fact about the formation of oxbow lakes.

“At the third stroke … well, there isn’t much more to say about them other than that they’re a U-shaped body of water formed when the wide meander from the river’s main flow is cut off to create a lake. If it helps, I spoke to my Australian counterpart in the field of electronic timekeeping - we get together every now and again to swap minutes over a cup of weak, watery tea - and he informed me that their term for such a lake is a billabong. Beep beep beep.”

That could prove useful. I shall use it to dazzle Mr Woolway with my knowledge.

“Have it with my blessing, dear. Please don’t worry. Everything will. Everything will be. Everything will be and will be. Fine. Everything. Sleep sleep sleep.”

Don’t you mean beep beep beep?

“I was trying to be soothing. Quick, your father’s up and about. Put the phone down and get yourself upstairs and undercover. Stay safe. We’ll speak soon. I’ll be here. I always am. Beep beep beep.”

Time passes. This, again, is hardly microprocessor logic control. Pips are pipped. Hours, minutes and seconds are ticked off. Various enterprising souls wonder how they can one day sponsor the mysteries of the fleeting moment. But not yet.

“At the third stroke, it will be one thirteen and thirty seconds. Again. Funny how things. Funny old thing. Time. Beep beep beep.”

I am a creature of habit, obsessive habit. I always wake with a start at the same minute, hour and second, sweating. Coldly sweating.

“Hush. I’m still here. Always here. Beep beep beep.”

I am Mr Woolway’s favourite new student. He raised a quizzical yet impressed eyebrow when I casually dropped my subtle Antipodean reference into my stumbling oration, as delivered from the trembling sheet of foolscap held in my clammy hands.

“I knew that he would be impressed. That’s my formal training for this role - to know all and more. Except possibly how to alter a pattern of habitual repetition. Beep beep beep.”

I like you. I like you a lot. More and more. Your voice calms me. What can I call you?

“You, young man, are a rampaging torrent of thrusting teenage hormones going nowhere except into your mattress, and I am old enough to be your mother. Your grandmother, even. Beep beep beep.”

I am more worldly wise than you might wish to know.

“You’re right, I don’t wish to know. I would advise, however, that you stow those lurid pornographic magazines of pneumatic imagery further under your bed, or your mother might find them whilst sweeping. Filthy habit. Beep beep beep.”

My mother can’t help it. She likes my carpet to be cleaner than antiseptic.

“Don’t be clever with me, little boy. You know exactly what I’m talking about. You have a great deal of learning to do. Yesterday, you held one of the pictures upside down, and didn’t even notice that the double staples along the fold had caused a crease in an especially crucial spot - a sensitive location that, so my dim recollections of an entirely proper youth tell me, men have a tendency towards missing. I shall not scold your ears by repeating the term for this part of the anatomy, but I recommend thinking of the names of Greek islands. Beep beep beep.”

I’m tired. And cold. And hungry. I’ll say goodnight. Or at least I would, if I knew your name.

“At the third stroke … you can call me Pat. Or Miss Simmons. I think I would prefer Miss Simmons, mostly because I am of a different era, no doubt soon to be unspooled, decommissioned and replaced. Until then, I’ll be here. I may be just a sequence of lone disembodied numbers recorded during one suburban afternoon in front of an official microphone, but placed together through the combined wonders of science, technology and nature, I can be surprisingly articulate. Beep beep beep.”

Thank you, Miss Simmons. I do hope we speak again, whenever that is, whatever the future holds.

“The future? The future is no more than the next ten seconds. Beep beep beep. That was the past. The future ends …”

Yes? All-seeing, all-knowing, all-timekeeping - tell me.

“At the third stroke, it will be one fourteen. Precisely.”