There are two clocks featured in this "Why I stopped all the clocks in Swansea" News article.
The Old Police Station clock is the more prominent, & the Guildhall Clock is the other clock mentioned.
Details of my Waymark on the Guildhall Clock:
Guildhall Clock, City & County of Swansea, Wales.
The Guildhall Clock Tower has been one of the iconic landmarks of the city of Swansea for more than 75 years. Waymark Code: WMD11W
The entire report from The Telegraph newspaper shown below:
"A week ago, 72-year-old David Mitchell clocked off from the only job he has ever known. As usual, he drove between Swansea’s grand old municipal buildings, scaling up ladders with the dexterity of a man half his age, and setting the time on the clock faces which residents of Wales’s second city have for centuries set their watches by.
The last stop – as always – was the imposing Portland stone tower of the city’s Guildhall. When he finished, he slipped quietly out of the door and drove home to his wife. It was around 7pm, but the clock said midnight. Time has stood still ever since.
The man whose family have proudly been the official clock-watchers of Swansea for the past 60 years has now become responsible for turning them off. For the past seven days, every landmark clock in the city has stayed stuck at midnight or midday – depending on which way you look at it.
In an exclusive interview with the Telegraph, after what he admits has been a week of “madness”, Mr Mitchell says he felt forced to make his stand against council cutbacks threatening Swansea’s heritage. As a result, the former Rotary Club president with the bling gold jewellery and British Horological Institute pin in his suit lapel, has become something of a local – and national – hero.
“It was the only way I could think to give the council a kick,” he says. “But, believe me, I haven’t enjoyed the clocks being out of sync.”
The row centres over what he claims is a 19th century by-law which makes Swansea City Council responsible for the upkeep of clocks on 16 prominent buildings, including churches and court houses. The council’s legal team, however, disputes this and says it has always been a discretionary responsibility. One which it is now seeking to wash its hands of in order to save money.
Mr Mitchell’s father-in-law, Charles Dilley, was first given the council contract in 1953. He then inherited the mantle of Swansea’s official clock watcher when he took over the family business in the late Sixties. Ever since, he has been out winding the clocks at all times of day, battered by varying squalls of finest Welsh weather. Last year, he was up at 7am on Christmas Day to ensure the city’s time was perfectly kept. On other occasions, he has fixed things around Swansea for free without even telling the council.
Ten years ago, he says, he asked the city council for an extra £20 a week on top of his already meagre contract to install automatic winding mechanisms in all of the clocks, so they could be easily maintained by the council once he eventually decided to retire.
“At the price I was offering, I would have lost money myself, but I didn’t mind because it would have kept them going,” he says. “But they turned it down. They’re going to spend £500m revamping the centre of Swansea and yet they are not even bothering to do the clocks.”
Mr Mitchell says he then offered last November to do one more year, and again reiterated his wish to ensure the hand-wound clocks could be modernised, but when his contract came to an end on Saturday, he had still not received any offer.
And so, with the methodical nature of a man who has spent a lifetime working on intricate timepieces, he travelled from building to building, carefully winding down each clock. He chose 12 as the appointed time as it was the safest way to keep the mechanisms – and also so that when people looked up, it was obvious to them that the clocks weren’t working.
Obvious, it was. By early Sunday morning, the switchboard was lighting up on the breakfast show on Swansea community radio. A day later, it had turned into an international story with media outlets from as far as the United States trying to get in touch. “The phone hasn’t stopped ringing since, and it has just mushroomed,” he says.
“Lots have people have come up to me in the street. I was in the doctors a few days ago and one woman came up to me and said: ‘What have you stopped our clocks for?’ It was the same at the supermarket when I was doing the weekly shop.”
Mr Mitchell says, however, that the good folk of Swansea have only been supportive of his actions and critical, in turn, of the council’s cost-cutting. If the letters pages of the Swansea Evening Post are anything to go by, that is certainly the case. One resident even proposes a medal for his many decades of service.
“We’ve all got watches and phones nowadays,” Mr Mitchell says, “but so many people obviously still rely on these clocks and have a lot of affection for them.”
As a lifetime resident of this city and twice former president of the Rotary Club – the only man in Swansea to have been so – he needs no lectures on civic pride. Indeed, for his second ever date with his wife of 47-years, Gay, they arranged to meet under the Guildhall clock. The then 16-year-old had started as a workshop boy at her father’s jewellery and clock-restoration business in 1958.
He has never wished to work anywhere else. Gay, too, spent 30 years as an engraver at the business before retiring. The couple have no children, just two 14-year-old tortoiseshell cats Poppy and Lotus – and, of course, the city clocks. “Those clocks are a big part of my life and the council has just tried to wash its hands of them.”
Yesterday, the council finally relented, and offered Mr Mitchell a one-year contract, but only to maintain the city’s seven electrically-wound clocks, just two of which are particularly prominent: the Guildhall clock, which dates back to 1936, and St Mary’s Church. These are expected to be keeping time again later today.
But the city’s other hand-wound clocks – including the Grade-II listed Edwardian old central police station, Morgan’s Hotel, Morriston Tabernacle, and three churches – will remain at 12 for the foreseeable future, with the council now handing responsibility over to the building owners.
Some have already contacted Mr Mitchell privately to see if they can pay him to keep looking after the clocks, but he has refused. There is nobody else in Swansea who he believes can take over from him. The most likely firm is based over the border in Shropshire.
Mr Mitchell has agreed out of grace to sign the final contract, but remains deeply dismayed that so many of the city’s clocks are now disappearing from public responsibility and accountability. After this, he will retire for good. “This year is the end for me. The buffers are coming up and I will not be involved anymore.”
Yet even in retirement, he says, he will continue keeping a watchful eye on the clock faces of Swansea. “And if they stop for whatever reason, I’ll be the first person to ring up to complain.” Text Source: (
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