Everyone will have seen at sometime in films or airports a number of adjacent clocks displaying different times in cities around the world and the more observant person walking around Tenby town centre recently will have noticed St. Mary's Church clock seemingly replicating this.

Although the south and west faces are both in working order, though at present stopped at nine o'clock, they show a difference of about one minute, but this is normal and due to wear in the mechanism over the past 115 years.

Greater concern, though, has been shown lately - with the Rector unfortunately bearing the brunt of enquiries - with the east and north faces; those facing Tudor Square and Woolworths, respectively. The east face has shown the time to be 11.25 all day and the north face any time between 5.30 and 6.30, but now to everyone's surprise they show no time at all - the hands are missing.

The reason for these irregularities, albeit temporary, are that for the east face the minute shaft became tight inside the hour shaft due to corrosion at the outer end and habitually stopped the clock sometime between 15 and 30 minutes past the hour. The north face hand came loose on its shaft and decided to hang down in gravity fashion, with the minute had rotating around it.

A service engineer from the old established clock makers/repairers, J. B. Joyce and Co., attended the scene last Thursday and, working with Ray Poole, who presently maintains the clock, they removed the two errant shafts both about five feet long, and he has taken them away to be repaired at their workshop.

The service engineer, Nathan Coffin by name, abseiled down from the tower parapet to each of the clock faces to remove the hands - a run of the mill job to him, but not to many people's liking - and the shafts were pulled through the walls into the bell chamber.

Before working for J. B. Joyce, Nathan worked for seven years on the SS Great Britain in Bristol and his primary job there was working up on the masts and rigging. He will be back in Tenby in a few weeks time with the refurbished shafts and the clock should then be back in full working condition.