“What you have here my friend is a good old fashioned clockmakers curse.

A wealthy Squire commissioned this timepiece and refused to pay, which was quite a common occurrence in those days but which placed Jonathon Monkton in penury leaving him to die in a debtor’s prison. As he set up the clock Monkton hid this curse where it would not be discovered. The curse condemns the Squire’s soul to everlasting torment inside the clock.

That night as George slept he was awakened by a change of tone to the cursed timekeeper. The chime seemed to have a deathly morbid echo that reverberated through the whole house. He crept downstairs and there in the dim light from his torch saw the clock was pulsing with a ghostly green phosphorescence. It was still chiming the midnight hour and he heard an agonised moaning coming from within. ‘Whatever could it be?’

“If you have any pity please let me out. I have been trapped inside here for two hundred years and cursed for all eternity.”

Horrified, George asked what he could do?

“Turn the winding key backwards as hard as you can to break the spell and we will both be at peace.”

Shaking with terror the sleepy man tried to oblige. He forced the large key backwards with all his might and there came a crack followed by a loud bang and then he heard a triumphant whoop of joy. “Free! I’m free at last!”

George Kendal would have joined in the excitement but he suddenly felt very strange. He couldn’t move and was seeing the room from a funny angle. Then the penny dropped.

He had exchanged places with the ghost and was now locked inside the clock.

Six months later a man out walking with his young family stopped outside a small bric-a-brac shop called ‘Twice Used Emporium’

They begged him to enquire about the imposing grandfather clock inside.

“Can we buy it for our new house…please?”

Inside the store the shifty old man in the brown overcoat smiled to himself and absently touched his wallet.

End