Viva Brighton Issue #50 April 2017

TRADE SECRETS
....................................
David Jones
Watch repairer
I’ve been in this business for about 70 years.
I’d been working as a mechanic for the National
Cash Register Company, but then I put my back
out. I was off work for a year, and while I was
recovering I started doing watch and clock repairs
from my home in Portslade.
It started as a hobby, but then a man called Mr
Scrace came knocking on my door, as he’d heard I
was keen. He trained me and gave me most of my
early jobs - mainly cleaning watches for seven and
sixpence.
I had a lucky break. My father worked for Remploy,
which organised factory work for disabled
people, and he was asked to move to Sussex to
oversee a new watchmaking factory. It fell through,
and the company had to sell off the tools and machinery.
My dad bought me a lot of the equipment
I needed to start out.
I took my first shop in Sackville Road in 1952,
in the building now occupied by Countryman
Improvements. I’ve been in this shop since 1970.
The business went through a tough time in the
’70s. Customers wanted everything brand new
and would just replace their watches when they
broke. Now it’s picked up again, because a lot of
people have taken a shine to traditional mechanical
watches.
My son Martin has worked with me since
he was about 13. He wanted to buy a radiocontrolled
speedboat and I said: “Well, if you want
one, you’ll have to come and earn some money.”
I started him on watches, but he always preferred
working on clocks, so that’s his speciality.
Watches are seen as a prestige item. Me, I’m
not particularly interested in that. I wear a secondhand
Tissot that I’ve had for about ten years. Tissot
is a subsidiary of Omega and good quality. But
as long as it keeps time, any watch is okay by me.
Some of the most unusual watches we get in
are by Verge and date from the 1700s. I have to
say, my heart sinks a bit when someone puts a
Verge on the counter. They’re hard to make any
money from because you have to spend so much
time on them.
It’s an inventive job; you have to think out of the
box to find solutions to problems. A lot of shops
now just tell customers they can’t do the work or
they send it back to the makers. I always try and
fix it.
You need good eyesight. Mr Scrace taught me
how to drill balancestaffs, which are as thin as a
hair. My eyesight is not as good as it was, but it’s
good enough.
I’m kept very busy. I didn’t used to open the shop
til 11am. Now I come in at 8.30am and rarely go
home before 10pm. It would be nice to have a
little more time to myself, but I’d be a fish out of
water if I gave this up. As told to Nione Meakin
DL Jones & Son, 64 Blatchington Rd, Hove
dljonesandson.co.uk
Photo by Adam Bronkhorst, adambronkhorst.com
....65....