I was amazed to see rows and rows of glittering watches on the display stands in a jewellery store the other day. I confess, this was my first visit to a jewellery store for years, as I tend to stay away from any temptation that is out of my reach. But guess what, my wedding anniversary, Valentine’s Day, and my wife’s birthday all come together at the turn of this solstice, so I had little choice in this instance.

My surprise at the sight of so many expensive watches all in one place is due to the fact that mobile telephones seem to have displaced the watch as chief timekeeper. What’s the time, you may ask, and everybody around, from children to elders, whip out their phones to give you

the answer. I thought wristwatches had dropped out of style, but the store window and counters seemed quite popular with the watch seekers.

I didn’t think time was so important to Jamaicans. Eight O’clock Jamaica Time is a famous satirical play written by Tony Gambrill in the 1970s. The point made by Gambrill was that eight o’clock for most of us means 8:30 or 9:00, and if I remember correctly his play always started at 8:30 pm. And still people arrived late. So “eight o’clock Jamaica time” became a part of the local idiom earned by our penchant to be late for appointments, meetings, shows, church and, of course, work.

Punctuality has never been our strong point in Jamaica, and yet we were brought up under rigorous timekeeping standards. Many of us started off at school with the nine o’clock deadline for morning attendance, and went through the day with exact schedules governed by the clock, the bell, or by corporal punishment.

Take the old-time elementary, or government school — as it was called in my days. We didn’t own watches, but we could tell time if we arrived after nine am, as Big Teacher would be standing at the gate with strap in hand bearing that special welcome for all latecomers. The school schedule of morning devotions, classes, recess, lunch, afternoon recess, and ‘going home time’ was governed by the first and second bells. Anyone caught out of place knew what to expect.

Which brings me to the question of corporal punishment in Jamaica, which I understand is now officially abandoned. My generation, at least, will vouch for the fact that our schoolteachers did not go beyond the strap on the open palm or over the back. We were not exposed to cases where teachers got emotionally carried away and resorted to physical abuse as reported in other instances.

The licks did us no psychological harm as we knew what to expect if we were out of line. The thing I didn’t like was when you got a clap or two for incorrect answers.

Everyday, after lunch, they would line us up for mental arithmetic. The bigger boys would rub their hands on the ground in preparation for a slap of the strap if the wrong answer was given. But Teacher was smart. Whenever he or she saw a palm willingly stretched out, she recognised ‘the strategy of the toughened hand’ and would aim the strap at the back.

Well, poor me with ‘sums’; I may have been good at English, but didn’t have a clue about the figures and numbers. So I went through my regular afternoon drubbing, but invented quite a number of dance steps as I learnt to wiggle my way out of the beating line.

But back to the subject of time. One person who was always punctual was the inspector of schools. Every child was told to attend school on Inspection Day in his or her Sunday best. We would watch nervously through the windows as the Inspector drove promptly through the gates at 10:00 am, coaxing the vehicle slowly and teasingly into the schoolyard to park under a tree. The man, dressed in black, would keep us waiting and sweating for a while before emerging from his ‘limousine’.

I don’t think those inspectors ever smiled, at least not the ones who visited us. He would go straight to the headmaster’s platform and take over the desk while we waited for the cue to chant “Good morning, Inspector”. Even if at that age we didn’t mean it.

Teacher would then hand over the attendance and other record books for him to read and grunt at, following which he would glare at the senior class and take us through question time.

The trick was to have the brighter students strategically placed where it was expected that they would catch his eye. But sometimes he would miss, and although I was warned to keep quiet and be inconspicuous, his eyes once landed on me and I was asked an arithmetic question. I immediately launched into a coughing fit, thereby saving the school from a major embarrassment.

Inspectors were to be feared in those days by both teachers and students, but they did a good job as pioneers for the Jamaicanisation of our education leadership system.

Now, it wasn’t only the school bell that guided us through our early lives. If you lived near to a sugar estate you had what was known as the ‘kauchi’ to set your time. The ‘kauchi’ was a horn that was blown to alert the workers to lunch and shift change times. The nearby village timed their activities off its mournful sound, and kept track of the day according to ‘when kauchi a blow’. We also had the church bell which rang religiously every Sunday morning at 10:00 am for call to service, and tolled to announce a death or the commencement of funeral services.

The railway trains, if you were fortunate to live nearby, also gave us a whistle signal — in my case at precisely 5:50 am to wake us up. If the trains didn’t, then you could set your time off the country buses — Pioneer, Confidence, The Enterprise, Bugle Boy, and Treasure Girl all gave us a blast on the horn as they advised passengers that they were passing through, or summoned us to meet them at the square.

Munro boys would never forgive me if I didn’t mention the school bell which was rung from 6:00 am and at intervals during the day for meals, chapel, classes, breaks, prep, and bedtime. The bell is an indelible part of the Munro experience, and the little tower has been used as a meeting place for making important announcements, none more poignant than the day Headmaster Richard Roper summoned the entire school around its base to announce the passing of a revered Second Master Guy Wiehen in 1957. That moment was immortalised in poetry by past student and Poet Laureate Mervyn Morris, who was then the English teacher at Munro.

In earlier days, gentlemen of distinction, the esquires of the village, took pride in wearing their watches attached to a gold chain and placed in their fobs — a tiny pocket slipped into the waistband of pants and trousers and made by tailors for hiding small change or keeping the ‘fob watch’.

Regarding this matter of timekeeping, I am grateful to Lauris Goldson and Brenda Joy Black for a particular story carried in their excellent souvenir magazine compiled on the history of our home village, Four Paths. Goldson and Black tell us that the Four Paths Railway Station was not only a significant railway stop, but was famous for its clock, which played a very important role in the lives of many individuals living in close proximity and as far away as Vere and Chapleton.

According to the writers, it is on record that the clock kept the most accurate time in all of Jamaica, and gentlemen would visit the station at least once per month to synchronise their watches with ‘the master of all clocks’. The station master also kept a daily log of the time at various intervals and added his personal observations about the prevailing weather conditions. As examples, his log would read as follows: “Wednesday, August 14, 1944, 12:31 pm, scattered showers, with the possibility of heavy showers later. 4:00 pm: train from Kingston arrived 2 minutes early.”

Another example, recorded Tuesday, October 11, 1945, reads “7:10 am: heavy rain and thunderstorm. The station has a leaking roof. 3:30 pm: very cloudy and strong winds”.

This ‘master of all clocks’ also acted as a trade union negotiator for an employee when he turned up late for work one morning in May 1948. He claimed rain as an excuse, and his employer decided to call upon the station master and requested a reading of his log. The log confirmed that it was indeed raining at the same time given by the worker, and thus his job was saved.

Well, the world turns, and next week I am thinking of heading back to that jewellery store to buy my first watch in many years. But, who knows, I may be diverted into a computer store to buy one of those new wristwatches that gives you Internet, e-mail, camera, and, oh yes, the time. Is the watch fighting a losing battle? Watch this space for more.

Lance Neita is a public relations and communications consultant. Comments to the Observer or to lanceneita@hotmail.com