You rarely see young people wearing watches these days.  If they do, it probably does tell the time, but also it tells them how much water they’ve drunk; how fast their heart is beating and the results from Newmarket that afternoon.

I was encouraged to tell the time from an early age and had my first Timex bought for me from a Balham jewellers in the mid-60s.  The man in the jewellers was disappointed as neither parent were buying any expensive rings or bracelets, but solely a watch where you got change from a ten-bob note.

My mum owned a perfectly good watch.  However, this didn’t stop her asking policemen (or anyone in a uniform for that matter) the time!

I had the Ladybird book on telling the time.  I learned that “at 12 o’clock Mummy cooks dinner” – until my mum re-wrote it to say: “at 12 o’clock Mummy opens her first Guinness”.

The final page was: “at half past seven we are asleep”.  I could never understand this during the summer when there were still about three hours’ of daylight left!  But, as you get older, so that’s horribly near the truth again.  What the book didn’t tell you was “it is two thirty in the morning and you realise you really shouldn’t have had that Bournvita”.

Whenever I’m asked what the time is, I look at my watch and tell people where the big hand is; they soon seek their information elsewhere.