Now everyone's a clock-watcher! (From Gazette)

Manningtree Rotary clock hits headlines worldwide

6:00pm Tuesday 17th November 2009 in News

MANNINGTREE’S muddled clock has now won international fame.

The town centre ticker hit the headlines last week after the Gazette revealed the new clock’s numbers seven and eight were the wrong way around.

News of the blunder, which went unnoticed for several hours after it was put up, rapidly spread and left the town’s Rotary club, which maintains it, facing questions.

Since then the clock has featured in newspapers as far afield as Australia.

David Shearmur, of Manningtree Stour Valley Rotary Club, described the publicity was “wonderful”.

He said: “It’s incredible what makes a story! Two digits the wrong way around and you have a story that goes all around the world. People from New Zealand and America have phoned about it.

“It seems 99 per cent of local people want to keep it as it is.”

The clock was returned to its home in the High Street last week, after repairs to damage caused by yobs in August.

It needed parts from Japan to be repaired before it was replaced last week.

Manningtree’s mayor, Lee Lay-Flurrie, has asked that the clock be left untouched.

She said: “Everybody who has approached me has said ‘please let’s leave it the way it is’.

“We are the smallest town in England, so we have a quirky clock.”