A grand-old wall clock that hung in the bar of the Captain Cook Hotel at Miller’s Point, Sydney, ticked away for almost half a century, reported the Daily Standard newspaper on April 27, 1933. While the Captain Cook Hotel continues to trade at Miller’s Point (2021), it’s not known whether the clock has survived. Can anyone help us out?
TIME CANNOT BEAT IT
Bar-room Clock Nears Half Century
THIS is the story of a bar-room clock that is reputed to have ticked without relief through storm and stress, through boom and depression, for better or for worse, for 43 years.
This old Man of the Hour lives on the wall above the main bar in the Captain Cook Hotel, Miller’s Point, Sydney.
Licensees have come and gone; Governments have toppled, nations have fought, but the old clock has remained, ticking the precious minutes away in the kingdom of the Thirsty.
Mrs. P. Hastings, the present licensee has had the hotel for five years, acquiring the clock with the rest of the furniture. Before her, Mr. A. Hayes had the lease for about 10 years, and before him, Mrs. Brown was there for 12 years.
“We have all taken the clock as a matter of course,” said Mrs Hastings. “It doesn’t make much row, and as it did not need attention, we never thought of it as the hero of time it really is.”
One of the regular habitues of the Captain Cook, who looks upon the clock as a milestone in local history, however, said he remembered “more than 40 years ago – and wasn’t new then.”
It is estimated that the clock has done its duty (sometimes a painful duty at 6 o’clock) for 43 years.
It might have ticked its youthful best in the days of the merry harpsichord, and the restful antimacassar, for it is an old-fashioned pendulum type, now struggling to keep up with the pacemaker, Life, on one spring.
It has lost its golden chime, but not its reputation. And that’s everything, these days.
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Categories: Sydney hotels
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