Mt St Benedict gets new clocks

For almost a hundred years, thousands of pilgrims have sought peace, comfort and refuge in the quiet of Mount St Benedict, situated in the Northern Range above St Augustine. Central to that peace is the church overlooking the Caroni plains, and the abbey monks of the Benedictine Order.

For the past ten years or more, however, the two abbey clocks installed by Br Gabriel in 1950 when the present church was built have been silent.

The last clock “fixer” at the Mount was the Dutch priest Fr Benedict Simons, who provided “intensive care” to the old clocks as best he could. However, Fr Benedict died in January 2009 and the abbey could not find anyone to restore its clocks.

That all changed recently when retired businessman Michael Williams was sought out. Frustrated by the many non-functioning public clocks in the country, Williams decided it was time for correct timekeeping and started a new business venture, Timekeeper.

And for the one hundredth year anniversary of the abbey’s founding on October 6, 2012, the abbey commissioned Williams to restore its clocks. In fact, Williams was able to deliver the new clocks on October 6 this year — on the abbey’s 99th anniversary.

Except in a power failure, the new clocks should always tell the correct time, but when power returns the clocks will reset themselves to the correct time automatically. The newly restored church clocks will also now show time when the sun goes down because a “halo” of LED lights has been added by the Timekeeper.