The Time of Day
I’m walking to Greenwich through Blackheath, South London, mass burial graveyard of the unfortunate victims of The 1665 Great Plague which ravaged England from June until November of that year, reaching its peak in September when in one week 12,000 people in London died, from a population of around 500,000 and it was decided that Parliamentary administration should be conducted from Greenwich in order to escape the effects of disease in central London. All this some thirty years before John Harrison’s birth, but setting the scene for what was to be center stage for, quite literally, the time of day. I’m on my way to the Greenwich Royal Observatory home of the Harrison Timekeepers to join my friend and fellow holographer, Jeff Blyth, who suggested one winter evening during a meeting of The Royal Photographic Society Holography Group, that a hologram of Harrison’s fourth timekeeper ‘H4’ would be a notable achievement. When it was created, ‘H4’ represented state-of-the-art, 'leading edge' technology in a highly important scientific and technological field. Our hologram is also 'state of the art' and echoes the work we are doing in a parallel field. Particularly with vulnerable objects, showing holograms instead of the originals could prove to be an important innovation in the conservation world. The timekeepers are rarely out of sight from its secure display case, making this crazy impossible idea all the more reasonable.
A few days before my visit I’d arranged to meet Mr. Jonathan Betts, Senior Specialist in Horology at the National Maritime Museum to put forward our proposal. It was an idea that he greeted with enthusiasm, for he is constantly looking for new and exciting ways to interpret and reveal collections for visitors, and these holograms appear to be the 'next big thing', with very interesting possibilities for exceptionally valuable or vulnerable objects such as ‘H4’. Betts is a global authority on the timekeeper, having penned a number of works on the subject. He was the authorative historical advisor to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) for an episode of the television comedy ‘Only Fools and Horses’. Screened on the 9th December 1996, it attracted a massive television viewing audience of 24.3 million, a record for a British sitcom. The plot follows these lines: After finding the missing Harrison timekeeper, Del Boy played by actor David Jason, offers it for examination by experts at Sotheby’s and all accept it to be the Harrison “lesser watch”, a semi-mythical piece whose designs exist although it is unclear whether the watch was ever made. Spivey Del Boy is rewarded for his find to the tune of £6,500,000 at auction, elevating him from his council flat in Peckham, into grand oblivion far beyond our TV screens. It was the last ‘Only Fools & Horses’ show ever made, leaving the public with a memorable and plausible happy ending.