The brighter numeral

Text: an original contemporary personal-account-style practice extract.

When the clock returned to the library tower, the new numeral could be seen from the opposite side of the square. The older numerals had faded to a soft cream, but the replacement twelve was white. Against the weathered face, it looked like a small shout. By lunchtime, people were already asking why the restorers had not made it match.

At the project meeting, one committee member proposed darkening the new paint so that it would match the faded numerals. Leon, who had made the replacement, refused. He said that copying years of wear would create a false history for a piece completed last Tuesday. The numeral had been shaped by hand to fit the remaining marks on the clock face, but he would not disguise the fact that new work had been needed.

For the first few weeks, my eyes went straight to the twelve whenever I crossed the square. Gradually, I began to see the difference as part of the clock rather than an error on it. The repair did not return the tower to an untouched past; no repair could do that. It allowed the clock to continue while leaving an honest sign of what had changed. In time, the paint would weather, but it mattered that the clock did not begin its second life by pretending the first had never been interrupted.

In this extract, the writer tries to create a sense that careful restoration should acknowledge change rather than imitate an untouched past.

Evaluate how successfully this is achieved. Support your views with detailed reference to the extract.