Etre à l’heure

To be on time. . . .

The switch to Daylight Savings Time always has created that feeling of “jet lag” but without the excitement of a trip. As kids, we debated the meaning of spring forward. Now, we just look at our cell phones. . . .

The days of synchronization of watches seems to have passed—well, almost. Even though many of our electronic devices change time automatically, I still have wrist watches. And the queen’s royal time keeper has 450 clocks in Windsor Castle alone.

The Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland had one solution—his pocket watch was always at 6 o’clock, or tea time.

Time keeping technologies have been perfected throughout history. Some of the early innovations were developed by residents of Arabic and Chinese countries and later by Europeans. The accuracy of time pieces met with new challenge of navigation and the determination of longitude as well as the decision about a prime meridian.

Sundials. Gnomons. Water clocks. Weight driven. Pendulum. Artisans built elaborate clocks to show off their skills.

Towns, like Rouen with its Gros Horloge, and some chateaux (like Versailles) have famous clocks.

But the days of ornate clocks in a train station or town square seem to be something of the past. But I guess that switch to daylight savings would not be possible if our clocks required time keepers. . . .

Time change in France is March 25. . .



Clock - sundials, shown above, are from Antiques at La Boutique, Opio, France


To Learn More

For those of you interested in the use of churches as "time-keeping instruments," see J.L. Heilbron, The Sun in the Church.

Others may want to read about the Greenwich Meridian or clocks and navigation.

And if anyone has suggestions about a time machine that enables us to recover that lost hour, please post.