So yes, did you know people really did phone the Speaking Clock — thousands of calls a day — just to set the time? Another wonderfully peculiar detail of everyday British life from a world that didn’t yet run on digital certainty.
There are some bits of everyday life from the 1960s and 70s that younger generations struggle to believe. Like how we would phone a number just to find out the exact time. And we would pay to do so as well. But for decades, the Speaking Clock was as essential to British households as the kettle, the teasmade, and the bedside alarm clock.
Phoning the Speaking Clock became a regular part of our lives.
Before smartphones, digital displays, checking the internet, or shouting out to Siri or Alexa, “Hey, what time is it?”, the Speaking Clock was the most reliable way to find out the correct time.
And people used it. A lot. At its peak, it received tens of thousands of calls a day. It even had a human name — of sorts. If you dialled TIM (or later, 123), you were immediately greeted by an unmistakably British voice.
Imagine the scene — I need to know the time.
“Mam, what’s the time? The clock has stopped.” I would shout out.
“I haven’t got my watch on; give TIM a call.”
Of course, you would need to have a landline phone at home, and ours didn’t arrive until the mid-1970s. But when it did, it was a novelty to call the Speaking Clock.
“At the third stroke, the time will be…” TIM spoke, followed by three neat pips.
It was simple, functional, and, in its own way, a tiny bit magical.
The Speaking Clock actually had a long history, dating back to 1936, but it wasn’t until the 1960s and 70s, as ownership of home phones took off, that it truly became a part of British daily life.
Our clocks at home weren’t nearly as reliable as today’s. Hands slipped, or batteries ran down. Some clocks could lose minutes overnight, while others gained them. And bedside alarms often had a mind of their own. I had a wind-up variety, which ticked away and occasionally decided not to ring at all. Sometimes, it would go off early or simply stop — I never did figure it out.
If you needed to be somewhere and relied on one of those old clocks to get to work or school on time, chances are you might be late. Or, occasionally, very early. TIM was there to call, the night before a family holiday, double-checking the alarm for the 4 a.m. coach pickup. Or just before an exam, nerves on edge, wanting to be absolutely sure we didn’t oversleep.
When timekeeping needed to be spot on, it was provided by the Speaking Clock.
And so, we phoned the Speaking Clock for a chat with TIM. Not that he said much other than “At the first stroke…” Or second, or third. But we knew that TIM could be relied on to give us the exact time. The small expense was considered worth it. It was cheaper than missing the bus and better than oversleeping.
Setting the clocks and putting our trust in TIM became a ritual. Mam would dial the number, everyone else would fall silent, and then watch as she would adjust all the clocks in the house, one by one. The mantel clock, the kitchen clock, and the bedside alarm clock were put right as the pips sounded.
“Right,” she’d say, as though time itself had been sorted out. “That’s it. All correct now. Check your wristwatch next.”
For a while, the house ran in perfect synchrony.
As children, we found it fascinating. There was something so simple, yet futuristic, about a machine that told you the time. And there was an element of mystery about it too. It sounded like there was a real grown-up on the other end. At school, some kids even wondered if the announcer sat there all day, every day, with a microphone, answering every call.
How could a machine do that?
The voice changed over the years, with men and women selected through competitions. I cannot remember now if it was a man’s or woman’s voice; I’m sure I heard both. They sounded real, and they were — just recorded by new technology.
The Speaking Clock seemed to survive all technological change. Even as digital clocks emerged in the 70s, they weren’t always accurate. There was something else about the 1970s as well — we did have power cuts during times of industrial disputes. Digital didn’t work when the electricity went off.
And so the old reliable voice on the end of the phone remained and continued to provide us with the correct time.
But as time went on, new technologies began to make the Speaking Clock less important. We had video recorders with their own time displays, as did stereo systems and more reliable digital clocks. Quartz watches became affordable. Radio stations issued hourly beeps. All of these worked well, as long as the electricity stayed on.
Yet somehow, the Speaking Clock survived. People kept calling. And today, it still exists, though the numbers using it are less. BT still provides the 123 service, and it now costs 50 pence a minute to listen to ‘TIM’. There are cheaper speaking clock services available, though.
But for those who lived through the 60s and 70s, it remains a memory of an era when such technology seemed new and magical. Alongside it, the arrival of mass ownership of phones only added to the mystique. Occasionally, you would phone TIM simply because you could.
It was a time when setting the household clocks was a small domestic ritual, and accuracy came from the voice of TIM, saying, “At the third stroke…”
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Image by Jim Black from Pixabay
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