No time to spare for busy clockmaker

He said: “I have plenty of work when the hour goes back or, in spring, goes forward. People worry about damaging the mechanism and so they call me to do it for them.”

Despite the rise of digital watches, clocks and mobile phones, Mr Bénier is busy and has a shop and workshop in Nîmes, Gard.

“I am one of very few highly Swiss qualified clockmakers in France and I get a lot of repairs. People buy beautiful watches and clocks second-hand on the internet as they are cheaper and then find they don’t work properly, so turn to me.

“Repairs require a great deal of knowledge and skill and can take a long time. It is impossible to charge for the number of hours spent, but it is a passion.”

Coming from four generations of clockmakers from Jura, his grandfather was clock repairer for La Vache Qui Rit dairy firm and his father repaired a watch which belonged to Marseillaise composer Rouget de L’Isle, and which was given to General de Gaulle.

Mr Bénier trained at Tech­ni­cum Neu­châtelois du Locle in Switzerland and said: “350 applied, 35 were chosen and only four got the diploma after four years’ hard study.

“You had to be good at maths and technical drawing, and you have to be a perfectionist. You learned to make the tiny pieces, to take the mechanisms apart and put them back again. Not many people realise just how complex a clock or watch mechanism is.”

Some Brittany families will not be changing their clocks as the Masson family and about 10 other people on Ile de Molène live by ‘solar’ time (or GMT) all year. Yannig Masson said: “Like the UK, we’re an island and can decide to live the way we want to.”