The clock above the market

Text A: an original contemporary community-column-style practice extract.

For eleven months, the clock above the market displayed twenty-three minutes past two. People stopped looking at it, which made the tower seem less like a landmark and more like an enormous piece of abandoned furniture. When the scaffolding finally came down and the hands began moving again, I discovered that I had missed more than a way of checking the time.

On the first Saturday after the repair, traders looked up before taking their breaks. Two friends arranged to meet ‘under the clock at ten’, and a child waited for the hour so that he could count the chimes. My phone could have supplied each person with a more private and probably more precise answer. The clock did something different: it placed the same answer above all of us. For a moment, the market appeared to share a timetable instead of containing hundreds of separate ones.

Not every old mechanism deserves rescue simply because it is old. This clock, however, already occupied the centre of the town and could be seen from each entrance to the square. Repairing it did not return us to an imaginary past. It restored a familiar object to the purpose that had made it familiar. The moving hands now measure the present, not our affection for yesterday. The tower is still a landmark, but it has become a working part of the town again.

Text B: an original contemporary personal-column-style practice extract.

The restored clock was introduced with a ribbon, a short speech and the first full set of chimes for nearly a year. From the square, the sound was cheerful. From my flat opposite, where the next chime arrived fifteen minutes later, it was less like a celebration and more like the beginning of a new timetable I had not requested.

During the months when the hands were still, the market opened, buses departed and appointments were kept. Most people checked watches or screens. From several parts of the square, the clock face is hidden by awnings, trees or the angle of the surrounding buildings, so using it requires standing in one of the few places from which it can actually be seen. The claim that the repair returned an essential public service seems rather grand for a clock many people pass without consulting.

I like the tower and would oppose any proposal to remove it. The mistake was treating the appearance of the clock and the noise of its chimes as though they were one decision. The face could be maintained and lit, while the bell might sound at midday or on special occasions rather than every quarter of an hour. Preservation need not mean restarting every feature at its fullest setting. A town can remember its past without requiring everyone in the nearest bedrooms to hear it four times an hour.

Compare the writers’ ideas and perspectives on the restoration of the town clock, and how these are presented. Support your comparisons with detailed references to both texts.