Family Fortunes: The clock my grandfather wound

As a child, the lyrics of that late 1950s Johnny Cash song My Grandfather's Clock led me to believe that everybody's grandfather possessed a grandfather's clock.

That belief was further strengthened by the fact that my own grandfather, William John Kelly, who lived with us in the family home a mile or so south of Cliffoney in Co Sligo, possessed such a clock. Two weights hung within its case – one for time, one for chime. Before retiring each night, my grandfather’s last task was to wind his clock. I believe that on one occasion when neighbours came in for a night-time visit and he felt that they stayed a little longer than they should have, he got up and wound the clock. Message received.

Grandfather stored little odds and ends within the case of the clock. One such item was a little bottle of over-the-counter kidney pills. I was only eight or nine years old but, after overhearing an adult conversation, I became aware that a side effect of taking those tiny off-white pills was to turn one’s pee green. I was keen to check out this phenomenon for myself.

Secretly one morning before school, I had a small few pills for breakfast, supplemented by the nourishing food my dearly departed mother had prepared for me. During the 11am break, I had word out to all the boys to follow me to view the spectacle. I can still see that sense of awe all over their little innocent faces: yes, a flow as green as that well-known brand of washing-up liquid.

Incidentally, the song itself was written in 1876, the year before my grandfather was born. He died on the same weekend in September 1961 as that infamous hurricane, Debbie, lashed our shores. His heart stopped beating and Debbie stopped pounding at about the same time.

Meanwhile, and unlike the lyrics of that lovely old song, my grandfather’s clock didn’t “stop short, never to go again”. To this day, if wound every 24 hours, it tirelessly ticks on.

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