Mervyn Bowley, who worked in the Kendal Borough Treasurer’s office from 1933 to 1938, recalls how local people kept track of the time in the 1920s.

In the years between the wars a gun was fired at one o’clock on Saturdays in the Serpentine Woods as a time signal.

This useful public service was organised for the corporation by Rhodes, a firm of jewellers near the Town Hall. Presumably the keeper of the Serpentine charged the gun and Rhodes fired it electrically.

Obviously this service ceased in 1939. No doubt the gun was taken as scrap metal during the war but the masonry platform on which the gun was based is, I believe, still there.

The ‘boom’ could be heard everywhere from the gun’s commanding position above the town.

I recall my father by his long-face clock as one o’clock approached and I knew better than to distract him at that vital moment. The BBC was by then broadcasting time signals but he preferred the gun.

However, there were many people who could not afford a wireless set (radio). Others lived in flats or crowded areas, where it would not be possible to install the necessary aerial, which had to be as long and as high as possible. Portable radios were still to come.

The auction sales mentioned by me in my last Nostalgia article sometimes included one or more long cased ‘grandfather’ clocks – attractive items for both dealers and collectors, especially if they were of local origin.

My parents bought several at bargain prices at various times and I recall having three at our small house – striking thirty-six at midnight!

One such clock, now mine, was made by T.H Bigland, apparently of Kendal, and its fine oak case was noted by my father to be by Emanuel Burton, of Finkle Street (1760 to 1790).

It was common practice for the clock to be made by one craftsman and the case by his partner.

Another ‘grandfather’, still in my family, is inscribed on the brass dial ‘William Newby, Kendal.

My father added a note ‘Woolpack Yard 1710 to 1785.

It would be interesting to know whether any reader knows more about these three fine craftsmen or is perhaps even descended from one of them.