Heinrich Berensen
Fur 25 Jahre treue Dienste
Gelsenkirchener Berkwerks
Gruppe Boschum A.M.
1919-1944
The watch could have gone into action in ’44 in one of two ways. Herr Berensen could have been drafted into the Folksbundt, old men, Home Guard types, pushed into front line action, as a last ditch, stop-gap measure. Or alternatively, he gave the watch to his young son, just drafted, if very young, maybe one of the Hitlerjugend, boy scout types latterly used as cannon fodder. Whichever of them had the watch was probably either killed or taken prisoner. Surely they wouldn’t have been parted from the watch, otherwise.
This is all supposition, of course, but whatever the true chain of events, John Groom, private soldier, did acquire the watch when or after it was either looted from a corpse, or ‘bought’ or stolen from a prisoner. No one gave it to him in appreciation for a good war. When Charlie saw the watch he knew he had to have it. John Groom resisted at first, but Charlie set up such a campaign of attrition that he finally got his way.
The watch passed through my hands, and now belongs to my son, but it nearly didn’t happen. On one of his historic visits to his parents, Albert noticed that his father, unusually, wasn’t wearing the watch. The son asked, brusquely-
“As tha still got thi’ watch?”
“Aye, why?”
“Don’t forget- when tha goes, that’s mine”.
“Oh”. No more was said, but Charlie and Jane were both greatly disturbed by this, not by Albert’s manner, that was nothing new, but by the implications.
When Julia next visited, a few days later, they related the matter to her, and voiced their disquiet at possible wranglings over their few possessions, when they had passed on. Julia promptly got them both into town, to her solicitor, where they both wrote their wills which were duly signed and witnessed, and lodged with said solicitor. They came home relieved at having averted a possible crisis, but declaring that it was their wish that the wills should never be read! Winners and losers? More trouble? In the event, Albert died before either of them, and the wills were never read.
I wouldn’t mind betting, though, that I’m the only living soul who knows the name of the solicitor, not that the wills would be available after 50 odd years. Besides. The solicitor must be dust, himself, by now. I know his son took over the firm, yonks ago, and having had professional dealings with that individual (over an entirely unrelated matter) I wouldn’t trust him to find his arse without the proverbial atlas, and I certainly wouldn’t want to pay him for his ineptitude.
When Charlie died, Jane called a little meeting for us to sit before the fire to witness her opening of the ‘Machine Box Lid’. Imagine the bottomless box cover of a table-mounted, treadle sewing machine. Scrap the machine, put a bottom on the box cover, and you have a small but handsome storage box. Literal Coves among you will have noticed the misnomer; the machine box lid should have been the machine lid box but no matter.
It was in this box that Charlie kept all his little treasures and keepsakes, nothing of any value, though the twenty pounds, which constituted his life savings, was stashed away in his fishing basket, as he had informed Jane, only a few days before he died-
“Jane- when owt ‘appens to me, you’ll find a bit o’ money in’ tackle wallet, in me fishin’ basket”, and it’s a good job he told her, because as she said, the basket would have been straight out for the bin men. I still have his Soldiers’ Book of Common Prayer, which was issued to all WW1 troops, by command of Queen Alexandria. There were two, thick, ribbon tied wodges of those wonderful, engraved, silk panelled greeting cards from WW1 troops in France and Belgium. Jane picked them up and-
“Nobody wants these”, and before I could draw breath, she had flung them into the blazing fire! At the time, I dismissed it as an ill informed error of judgement on her part, but in later years, I came to think different. In her last few years, she slowly but systematically went through the house, disposing of items of varying interest, but little intrinsic value. She couldn’t take them with her, so she was going to make sure they couldn’t be fought over when she’d gone. When this first occurred to me, I thought perhaps I was being a bit neurotic, but what convinced me was the case of the vanishing Plutoes.
At some time, Leslie, Jane’s baby, had won, at a fairground, a pair of little figurines of Disney’s dog, Pluto. They looked like china, but within a translucent plastic skin, the bodies were chalk. They were quite pleasing little trinkets, quite small. But being of Leslie, and particularly after his death, they were revered almost like holy relics, kept locked in a china cabinet. One day, I noticed their absence. I mentioned it to Betty, who told me, in hushed tones that when she had asked Jane, she just muttered a casual denial-‘I dunno’ and changed the subject. I’m lucky I salvaged the chair and the watch.
Charlie wore the watch until he died, in 1958, and Jane then consigned it to a drawer, and there it stayed for 2 or 3 years. Then being very much into amateur drama, I asked if I might borrow it, to wear, in a play. Yes, I may. The watch wasn’t working, so I took it to Nick de Nitto, an horologist, in Campo Lane. I left it with him for inspection, and went back a couple of days later, for the verdict.
“Ah, yes”, he said, “the silver hunter. There are one or two things requiring attention, but nothing impossible. The glass has been missing for quite some years, probably because it needs a very shallow domed one to fit under the face cover, but I can get one to fit. The mainspring has been replaced, at sometime, with an oversized one, which is also broken, now. The spring sits in its own little container, called the barrel, and this has a cover plate called the barrel head. Think of a tiny biscuit tin, the size and depth of a 3d bit. Because the spring was oversized, they couldn’t get the barrel head back on, so they dumped it, but I can get the correct sized spring, and I can make a new barrel head”.
As he had been talking to me, he had picked up an old tobacco tin and opened it. Inside lay the watch- in pieces. All the while he spoke, he kept gently stirring the bits with one of his very fine-pointed tools. I very diffidently enquired as to cost, being almost afraid that if I declined to go ahead, he might simply empty the bits into my palm.
“The repairs, with a general cleaning, will be £26”.
In the early ‘60s, this was about half a month’s pay to me, but it had to be done. I arranged a £20 overdraft for 3 months, to pay for it. After the play, I gave the watch back to Jane, explained about the repair, and it went back in the drawer.
I borrowed it once or twice after that, usually paying to have it cleaned, about a fiver a time because, to clean a watch like that necessitates it being stripped down completely, unlike Jane’s patent method for cleaning her mantel clock, which was to take out the movement, boil it in a pan of water, then dry it off in the oven. When the clock has been reassembled, soak a blob of cotton wool in paraffin, and drop it in the bottom of the case. I once related this last snippet to my office assistant at the time, a propos of what, I don’t know. Days or weeks later, the office conversation drifted onto old people deteriorating at varying rates, and I mention that my Grandmother was of an advanced age, but was still quite rational, at which my assistant piped up-
“Oh aye. She boils clocks!” Back to the hunter-
Then on one occasion of my borrowing the watch, disaster struck! It just missed my skull, but it hit the watch hard. The play was called ‘Dutch Uncle’, a comedy in which I played a weird old cove who was trying to lure his female tenant into a wardrobe, so he could gas her- now be fair- out of context and all that. We had acquired two old wardrobes, each with a drawered base, central, mirrored door, and pedimented top. By cannibalising the two, we achieved the desired effect of a towering, monumental structure. In the dress rehearsal, the topmost pediment was still unfixed. When I lured my victim into the wardrobe and slammed the door on her, the pediment came down with its surrounding frame, which mercifully fell round my head and shoulders, but the back member smashed down on my up-stretched arms, then slammed across my chest, on the watch!
One can still see the crease mark, across the cover. And the tiny dimple where the spindle had hit it, through the shattered glass. The repair bill this time, was in excess of £50. Another, larger overdraft was required, but when I finally took the watch back to Jane, having kept her informed of events, she said-
“As you’ve spent so much money on it, you can keep it”, which was music to my ears.
When our son was 21, I offered him the watch, not thinking for one moment that he would be interested. He’s a child of the 21st Century, the computer age. Even pens and paper don’t exist in his world. Had he declined, I had in mind to try to return it to the Berensen family. To my amazement and delight, he nearly snatched my hand off. He was really, really enthusiastic, even when I explained that it represented a huge financial responsibility. The last time I had it cleaned, no repairs needed, it cost £56. If it needs doing again in 6 or 8 yrs time, what will the cost be then? £75? £100? No matter- he really wanted the watch.
So he has it now. I pity the Berensen family. I hope all they lost was a watch, but I fear they lost more. The watch will now stay in my family, but we carry their loss also. Hardly justice, I know, but some sort of bond, at least.
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| “Dutch Uncle” |