Deadeye
Established Member
True story - and nothing to do with the other thread apart from the title, whish as you will see, was too good to pass up.
We moved to our current home a long time ago...and the removal people broke or mislaid several things. One of the things missing was the pendulum weight from the grandfather clock. Now, this clock isn't fine furniture, but it was handmade my my grandfather and passed to me by my grandmother, so I felt an obligation to get it mended.
My wife took it to a clocksmith not too far away and explained that we needed a new pendulum weight.
He called the next day to say that when he'd carried it into the workshop, there was a thudding rattle in the base - which he thought might be the weight that had slipped down a gap in the casing inside. When he opened it he found a loaded (!) WW1 revolver and leather bag of bullets. All the bullets were heavily blown - and I have no idea how stable whatever gunpowder decompses to is. He kindly disarmed it whilst we picked our chins up off the floor.
We then took the gun to a police station. That was rather strange - I was a bit nervous walking in and announcing that I wanted to hand in a firearm.
That's it really - my grandfather had served in the war and it appears had secreted his pistol in the clock case. It seems he'd never told my grandmother.
Wind forward and I find myself putting small items in any voids of houses we leave or things I make. I like to think of them being discovered down the line.
We moved to our current home a long time ago...and the removal people broke or mislaid several things. One of the things missing was the pendulum weight from the grandfather clock. Now, this clock isn't fine furniture, but it was handmade my my grandfather and passed to me by my grandmother, so I felt an obligation to get it mended.
My wife took it to a clocksmith not too far away and explained that we needed a new pendulum weight.
He called the next day to say that when he'd carried it into the workshop, there was a thudding rattle in the base - which he thought might be the weight that had slipped down a gap in the casing inside. When he opened it he found a loaded (!) WW1 revolver and leather bag of bullets. All the bullets were heavily blown - and I have no idea how stable whatever gunpowder decompses to is. He kindly disarmed it whilst we picked our chins up off the floor.
We then took the gun to a police station. That was rather strange - I was a bit nervous walking in and announcing that I wanted to hand in a firearm.
That's it really - my grandfather had served in the war and it appears had secreted his pistol in the clock case. It seems he'd never told my grandmother.
Wind forward and I find myself putting small items in any voids of houses we leave or things I make. I like to think of them being discovered down the line.