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This is a difficult one. It is all too easy to say 'John Harrison'as he created so many inventions that we take for granted today - bimetal and caged roller bearing to mention but two. On reflection I have to change to Ahasuerus Fromanteel.
Ahasuerus became active almost one hundred years before Harrison in much more difficult times. He came to London as the seeds of the civil war were being germinated, joining first the Blacksmiths and then the Clockmakers Company in 1632 who were unable to control his activities when he expanded his workshop from the City into Southwark.
His work is highly skilled and highly inventive. In my opinion he was most probably the inventor of the first pendulum clock. Equally importantly, I believe he also perfected the anchor escapement with his son John.
But he was so much more than just an inventive eminent clockmaker. He was an entrepreneur with wide business interests from microscope lenses to fire engines. He continued to expand his manufacturing from Fleet St and Southwark to Newcastle and Amsterdam, all working under his Fromanteel Trade name as a prototype Multi National.
For the beauty in combination of art, science and craftsmanship who can resist Tompion's work? In particular the Astrolabe Tompion is perfection. It does not set out to dominate you as you admire it as many of Tompion's creations do.
But for a favourite clock, I come back to sheer craftsmanship; making a precision clock, not solely by invention but by perfection of application. John Harrison succeeded where the rest of the clockmaking world failed to make a clock that would survive and remain accurate against the temperature extremes and violent motions of a ship at sea. In itself his little clock did not solve the Longitude problem. H4 broke the logjam and showed navigation was possible; it still needed a clockmaker with the patience and skill of Harrison who had no equal to make it. Copies made by lesser men were nothing like as reliable at sea as the original.
John Harrison's H4 is my favourite clock.
This is one of your hardest questions! Most clock museums appal me with their baleful showcases acting as cages restraining spring mantel clocks, vengeful and silent. Even worse are the longcase clocks, lined up like dead soldiers or coffins on parade with the dead clockmaker trapped inside. The whole purpose of a clock is to tell the time and when museums cannot bother to show their wonderful clocks properly as their makers intended, I feel sad.My spirits are raised by a visit to Shuttleworth where enthusiasts labour to keep wonderful early aircraft in flight condition.
Seeing the Green Flash from the last rays of the sunset from 45,000ft over Arctic Canada to be followed by a show of the Aurora curtains of plasma cascading in towards the Magnetic North Pole as I flew on towards Greenland is certainly memorable.
It is difficult to compare two remarkable assents of the Rimpfischhorn. The first as a young man, leaving the Britannia Hut at 3am to climb and then complete the traverse of the mountain's porcupine ridge finally arriving back at the hut at 23:45 with the Swiss mountain rescue due to be called out at midnight after one of my friends had fallen down a crevasse as we crossed the final glacier.
The second was some 40 years after I had taken up paragliding as a more suitable winter sport for a sixty year old than skiing. After a short run and a jump I was soon floating up the 13,776 ft mountain in a little over an hour with no physical effort at all. The temperature was probably 50° Celsius colder on the paraglider with the view even more remarkable with nothing under my boots.
I suppose my most satisfaction is walking down any High St in almost any country in the world and looking into an electrical retailers and seeing kettles on sale containing controls that I have designed - some even over 30 years ago still being made; I must have designed something right.
Over the years I have never lived in London. I have travelled to the City many many times for BSI meetings, visits to Patent Agents, Lawyers and the rest. If the meeting had finished early, I have always made a point of slipping into St Paul's Cathedral to ascend to the Whispering Gallery to sit, contemplate and marvel.
My Mother inherited a Welsh longcase clock signed Thos. Evan's Bont=Uchel (Denbighshire), circa 1773, of 8 days duration with second hand and calendar in oak case which was in turn, was passed on to me. Keeping this clock striking correctly and maintaining accurate time kindled my interest in the mechanism and wondering how many generations of my antecedents had wound him weekly. In life you always need three things but you usually only have two of them - the time, the money and the inclination. For many years I only had one - the inclination- at least so I thought. Then on a trip to London I saw a John Taylor Ormskirk month going longcase in pollard oak with the largest rotating globular moon I had seen. I was hooked. I became a collector.
Being asked 'Which is your favourite clock?'I think of them all as my children. I love them all equally - even if one does drive me up the wall at times!
The present generations have no need of clocks. For them time is everywhere. On their phones, on their computers, on their radios and TVs, even on their coffee makers! They have no need of even a wrist watch. They don't know the difference between a one hundred year old clock and a two hundred year old clock or even a three of four hundred year old. They regard them all as just old clocks - boring!
Yet show them a clock with a story and their interest is aroused. Fascinate them with the subtlety of a mechanism and you have a convert. 'I never imagined clocks could be so interesting!'
In the Western World we are worried about how we or our children will cope when the oil runs out or becomes too expensive to buy. In most of the Third World this is not a problem for them - oil is, and always has been, too expensive to be used. They cook on open wood or charcoal fires. But everywhere the wood is running out too. Most of these areas have little rain and burning hot sunshine.
I would like to invent a sun cooker that is practical for continuous daily use as well as being reliable, repairable, endurable and affordable.
For me in particular, this is a very perplexing question. I am dyslexic. I have no favourite book. I found it difficult to read as a child and books were a torment for me. I wouldn't read to myself until well into my teens. The first book I really read to myself and enjoyed was 'Captain Hornblower RN'by C S Forrester. I still find it humiliating to try to read out loud.
The book that influenced me most is 'Straight and Crooked Thinking'by Richard H Thouless, I would recommend it unreservedly to any thinking individual.'
It would have to be Ahasuerus Fromanteel. I would like to bring the conversation round to what he had done between 1632 joining the Clockmakers Company and his advert in the Mercury in November 1658. He certainly had an interesting circle of friends, colleagues and customers, including Cromwell. Did he still have any drawings of the clocks he sold to Dr Palmer or Cromwell? Did he train Tompion and Joseph Knibb as no one else appears to have done so?
Most interesting of all - what was the real relationship between him, Salomon Coster and Christiaan Huygens over the invention of the first pendulum clocks? Then over a glass of Port after the dinner, I would bring up the development of the anchor escapement.
If by 'the next generation'you are referring to my gene line, then an emphatic 'No'. No one should saddle their children with his (or her) expectations as to what they should (or should not) do in their own lifetime. Children and Grandchildren should get on with their own lives rather than try to please their parents.
No tax is payable if a World Heritage clock is exported from the UK but tax is levied if such wonderful English clocks are repatriated back home. How does this encourage the retention of our heritage?