Text A: an original contemporary practice extract.

When the clock above the market hall chimed again after twelve silent years, the square did not become quiet. Canvas awnings still snapped in the wind and traders continued calling out prices. Yet, at the first stroke of noon, a stallholder paused with change in her hand, a cyclist put one foot on the ground and a child began counting aloud. For a few seconds, people with no reason to speak to one another were listening to the same thing.

My grandmother had worked near the square and remembered arranging her lunch break by that clock. Before its restoration, I had treated such memories as nostalgia for a town that no longer existed. The new chime altered my view. One of the lower notes sounded rough, but the imperfection pleased me: this was an old mechanism working again, not a polished recording pretending that nothing had changed.

We carry accurate time in our pockets, so the clock is hardly necessary as an instrument. Its value is different. Private screens tell each of us where we ought to be next; the bell briefly announces the hour to everyone. It does not make the crowd into a community or recover the past intact. It simply gives the square a shared moment, and that modest achievement is worth hearing.

Text B: an original contemporary practice extract.

On the morning the market clock returned, I admired the bright face above the roof and enjoyed the ceremony of its first chime. By the end of the week, admiration had become anticipation of another kind. From the office opposite, I could hear the mechanism gather itself every quarter of an hour. Conversations stopped, callers waited and numbers had to be repeated after the final note faded.

A council leaflet claimed that the restoration had allowed the square to “find its voice”. The phrase overlooks the voices already there: traders greeting customers, passengers asking about buses and colleagues talking beside open windows. Visitors may hear the clock once, photograph its face and move on. Those who work or live nearby receive the same performance throughout the day, whether or not they have chosen to attend it.

Preserving the clock was worthwhile. Its repaired hands make the building complete again, and opening the mechanism to visitors would reveal impressive skill. However, respect for an object does not require giving it command of the surrounding air. Let it strike at noon, perhaps, and remain silent between times. A town can remember its past without requiring its present inhabitants to hear that memory repeated every fifteen minutes.