British Clockmaker Inc

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Ray Bates sits in a room surrounded by clocks. They rest on the floor, line the shelves, and hang on the walls of his shop in Newfane, Vermont. They are museum-quality works of art. Rich in decorative hand work - engraved and cast and exquisitely painted - these silent pieces of clocks, surrounded by their functional brethren whom Bates has brought back to life, serve to remind the clockmaker that his job is not to "fix" antique and high quality timepieces, but rather to re-animate them."I actually do make clocks," he admits, "as I did to earn my Master Clockmaker status in Scotland, but that now is irrelevant. The function of a mechanical clock nowadays - in a world of television, satellites, and digital and quartz timepieces - takes on new significance. Now, it serves more to remind us of the ingenuity and art that once routinely went into the making of practical objects, and the timelessness of real quality.""My mission, as I see it, is to save as many of these antique clocks as I can, to bring them back to their original mechanical integrity - using all of the same techniques and materials from their period - and hope that someone will maintain that tradition long after I am gone."

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