The Original Tik Tok

This old machine still keeps perfect time, despite being made (if I believe the guy who serviced it last) in the early 18th century. This came to me via my Dad, who remembers it in a great aunt's residence (the back room of a temperance bar in Ardwick, Manchester) when he was a small boy. When he inherited it many years later, it didn't work and was in poor condition, so he was persuaded to let someone at work restore it. That restoration took over 20 years and we only got it back because the person was moving house and realised he still had it. My Dad stands and looks at it, shaking his head in disbelief and listening to the sound of it, whenever he visits my house. He has no room for it where he lives, and we have the perfect place for it, so I've unofficially inherited it now. He is over the moon that it found a proper home, eventually, in his family. The heartbeat of our house.