Storytelling Sunday -

Happy Sunday to you all and welcome to March's edition of Storytelling Sunday. Regulars will know that on the first Sunday of every month, blogger from across the globe join in telling stories of all shapes and sizes. This year we are talking about precious things. The stories are all linked together via their founder Sian who sits High in the Sky overseeing the posts.

So today I welcome you to another one of my precious items. Today I would like to introduce you all to my grandparent's clock.

Here she is, the clock my dad's parents had on their mantlepiece for as many years as I can remember. When I was a small girl, my grandparents lived in Leckhampton, a suburb of Cheltenham in a large terraced house. It was the kind of house which still had an outside loo and two lounges. Well one was the best front room and the other was a small parlour. This was the room where the piano stood along with chairs, a special glass cabinet and the TV. The mantlepiece had the clock. I can remember watching my grandpa winding the clock at bedtime with the key which lived under the clock. It had a chime for the hour and every quarter hour.

After my grandparents died, my parents let me have the clock and when I owned my own house, it sat on my mantlepiece above the fire. Now I used to wind it up too but people complained that it ticked too loudly and chimed incessantly so sadly the clock hasn't been wound for a very longtime. Nowadays it sits on top of the TV cabinet surrounded by photographs of friends and family and occasional flowers - currently it is daffodils.

Lil sister and I playing piano at our grandparent's house (me in red/orange).

 

Despite it not being wound up, that clock lifts my heart every time I look at it, it brings back memories of a happy childhood

•  playing in my grandparent's garden, 
• helping my grandpa on his allotment, 
• walking round to the swings at the park, 
• smelling my grandma's perfume, 
• the bristles of my grandpa's beard, 
• his dents in his scalp from bullet and shrapnel wounds at Dunkirk, 
• the funny old china hot water bottles and eiderdowns on the beds to keep us warm in the house with no heating

and many, many more. It is amazing to think that one item can evoke so many amazing memories but I suppose in a way this clock is so rapped up in my childhood, that the memories are deeply ingrained into the wood cabinet of the clock, and the times are measured by the ticks of the clock and the movement of the hands across the face. I think today, after all this time, I will take that key, and just like my grandpa, I will wind the clock and listen to the echoes of memories the ticking brings.

I wish you all a memorable Sunday and many happy times reading the stories brought to you today.