Old friend

It takes a long time to grow an old friend.

John Leonard

Back in the day – when this blog were a mere stripling and I had only just taken delivery of the Fuji x10 – I posted hereon some of the fruits of my first tentative photographic explorations. Of the image reproduced here I wrote:

“This is a most treasured possession of mine – the 1966 Omega Seamaster that the Kickass Canada Girl gave me as a wedding gift. It could do with a new crystal, but it is a thing of beauty and a timeless classic…”

Towards the end of last year the Seamaster abruptly ceased its measured recording of the passage of time and demanded some rare TLC. For one reason or another (time… money…) it was subsequently tucked away in its box and, if not forgotten, at least roundly ignored for a while.

By the time Easter hove into view I had built up a sufficient debt of guilt that I felt obliged to seek out some suitably dependable enterprise with whom I might entrust my precious timepiece. This naturally took some research – mostly of the InterWebNet variety – but did in the end produce precisely the result that I had sought.

The proprietor of Abacus Associates of Richmond in Surrey (the UK variants of both) has 40 years experience in the servicing of chronometers by such esteemed watchmakers as Rolex and Omega. Subsequent to the fall from fashion of mechanical movements in favour of quartz during the 70s and 80s and the concomitant reduction in demand for the old skills he became Lecturer in Horology at the British Horological Institute in Manchester.

That Abacus Associates’ services are now once again in demand is a result of the resurgence of interest in – and the desirability of – the mechanical watch. This is in part because the substitution of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets for the conventional timepiece has rendered the cheap digital watch practically superfluous. The futurist author William Gibson writes:

“Mechanical watches are so brilliantly unnecessary. Any Swatch or Casio keeps better time, and high-end contemporary Swiss watches are priced like small cars. But mechanical watches partake of what my friend John Clute calls the Tamagotchi Gesture. They’re pointless in a peculiarly needful way; they’re comforting precisely because they require tending.”

He’s not wrong – and my beloved Seamaster certainly did need tending. The end result – the watch having now been given a thorough cleanse and service, and the seals, crystal and strap having all been replaced – is that it now looks even shinier and more beautiful than before.

I may – as a side effect – be lacking an arm and a leg, but it has been well worth it!