Most memorable thing from your watch repair history

[WatchingOracle]

Hi everyone.

Hope you are all well. Just perusing the forum and thought i'd put this up.

I know it's a different kind of post but, what is the most memorable thing that you experienced in your watch repair history to do with watch and clock repairs?

I thought this might be a nice light hearted forum thread for some nostalgia and the like.

 

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Whilst I haven't been repairing watches yet-  I thought it only fair to talk about a related memory of a well loved, kindly, wizened, respected watch maker who ran a repair shop for over 70 years nearby from me up until he finally retired in 2020. He left a strong impression indeed in me. Anyone in the whole region who wanted quality watch and jewellery repairs knew of him, "Mr Cooper's shop". That's all you had to say really. Mr Cooper was a congenial and quiet fellow and I first encountered him when I was 5.

I remember his store was like stepping back in time (think of the shops in Diagon Alley you Harry Potter fans). He had advertisements up on the walls from the 1950s, shellacked old mahogany display cases were lined the store, overfilled with watches and clocks of all shape and manner. it was like a time capsule of time. He had also diverged into jewellery repairs and sales as well, so everywhere you looked was something nice to look at. I remember the impression it left on me at the time (though we were there, for about 3 or 4 hours that day... long story but ironically that afternoon also left an impression of him, of my mother and my very irritable grandmother it turns out!).

I hadn't been into his shop again until 2015, when I took one of my father's Seiko's in for a new crystal. Nothing had changed from what I remembered when I was 5. It was a very strange feeling that. That day, my mother happened to be with me and evidentially, he said he recognised her as the woman who had a god-aweful mother-in-law all those years ago, who spent 4 hours driving him insane over selecting from his merchandise HAHAHA.  It made everyone in the store laugh so hard hearing his recollection. He said all those years, he often did wonder when serving any other irritable customers, if my mother was driven to insanity by my grandmother and also that he remembered thinking that day, "if this was my daughter, I'd be telling her to move interstate and far away!" Funny what one remembers and what leaves an impression!

For those wondering, he finally retired at 96 if I remember correctly, though he said in a newspaper article that he kept enough of his tools in his backyard workshop and didn't plan on stopping cold turkey much to his family's dismay lol.