They call them perpetual calendars. But that may be a persistent misnomer. It certainly needs some further exploration.
It is so hard to find out definitive information about them, those simple, neat stylish wooden cabinets, often no more than eight inches high, variously made out of oak or mahogany or beechwood.
Four screws hold the two vertical side panels to the base. The top almost invariably features a ridged and angled wooden cap, held in place by staples into the vertical side panels.
Each side panel has four circular holes in which sit the spindles which feature the information the calendar presents. The top and bottom single spindles have paper sleeves, one featuring the day and the other the month. It would take an almighty spindle diameter to accommodate the possible thirty one days of the month, so those numbers are housed on a linen roll with a spindle top and bottom. When you reach the end of the month, the reel often helpfully instructs you to ‘rewind’ and the turning the upper spindle takes the reel back to the beginning. More on that later.
Sliding between the side panels at the rear is an often flimsy panel slotting into grooves and, at the front, a slightly more robust and decorative wooden panel behind which, in good quality examples, sits a glass panel.
Into the wood are cut three chamfered ‘windows’, openings to display the day, the date and the time.
And in a nutshell, that’s it.
An elusive history
Read on. I’ll expand a little on other ‘perpetual calendars’, much more sophisticated than these. But try as I may, I cannot find any definitive history of this type of simple date-keeper. Look on antique or vintage websites and you’ll see them variously claimed as ‘antique’ or ‘vintage’. Some will claim theirs date from late Victorian times. Others boast 1910. Some describe their as ‘Edwardian’. Then there are those who say their example dates from the 1920s or 1930s.
I am not sure how they know or how they can be so precise in their dating. Because, apart from a 1950s version which happily acknowledged it was echoing times past in a Vintage range (it is lovely but I’m afraid it has already gone to a new home), I have never met one that had any means of dating itself. The typography on the reels may give a clue, but only loosely so. I have never come across one that has a maker’s name on it or any kind of date stamp.
Timeless appeal
So what is it about them that makes them so desirable, so collectable, at a time when clocks seem to be losing their appeal?
I think it is their analogue mechanical simplicity that makes them so attractive. A digital display automatically updates every day without any intervention. It even adjusts to leap years and daylight saving changes. Time goes on with no human connection.
Each morning, I love to step into the lounge and address the perpetual calendar on the bookcase. I love the feel of well-worn wooden spindles as I turn them to move time on by a single day. I love the sense of tightening the date reels to ensure the numbers display correctly. And I know that twelve hours apart, over in Australia, my ten year old grandson has gone through exactly the same ritual, turning the calendar he took back with him from England on his last visit here. And at the end of each month I am reminded of the inexorable passage of time as I rewind the date reels and turn one small turn, the bottom reel to welcome a new month.
Handled gently, not a lot can go wrong. Perpetual calendars have been keeping tabs in the passage of time for a hundred years or more. They take no maintenance, apart from the odd dusting and light polishing. In their simplicity they have a decorative elegance. They make a statement. They make a great gift.
Not really perpetual
Truth is they require manual intervention. So they are not really perpetual. That title surely goes to those amazing calendar devices that, with a few twists and turns, tell you what day it was on any given date in the past or the future. Now, the idea that that is possible baffles me entirely. But they were managing it in ancient times, and since the 18th century watch makers have been devising devices that will show the day and the date without the need for manual intervention, even allowing for leap years.
I’ll leave it to others cleverer and more knowledgeable that me, to elucidate. For background on the original concept, click here. For information about the development of perpetual calendar watches click here.
Where’s the catch?
I’ve noticed something odd. On a number of examples I have come across, there has been slight damage to the linen reel which features the date. It may be just a crease or more likely a slight tear, easily fixable, but strange in its consistency. Because it often seems to feature around the number 22. As if something has been catching, at 22.
It got me thinking. Apart from clocks, another of my passions is poetry. And on seeing one particular perpetual calendar with the ‘22 catch’, I got to wondering about the history of the calendar, and its previous owner. I wondered how that tear came about. And I tried to imagine what impact it might have on the imaginary owner each time the date was rewound, forcing time backwards and snagging, always at 22, in the process.
Here’s the result of my musings. If you are interested, you’ll find more of my poetry at hughvenablespoetry.com
(If you are reading on a phone, turn the screen sideways to landscape – the lines in poetry always read better that way.)
Catch 22
Here’s the catch.
At day 22 the perpetual calendar’s fading canvas sports a tear
not torn entirely, still just holding on, where
the number in its window sits askew, ragged,
misaligned as if at some time past the roller snagged
and someone, eager to hurry the memory on
desperate of heart to leave behind a day just gone
had forced the piece one waking morn in haste
to jettison a memory they hankered to obliterate.
And, in daily ritual scrolling up, by 26 or 28
everything had realigned and all looked straight
again, that scar of rip concealed in case beneath the day,
all equilibrium restored, the past securely scrolled away.
But through mechanical mundanity, the curse of vintage days,
with brooding certainty as each old month plays
out, the familiar scene requires that rolls reverse to
wind back time, to start next month anew.
And there it is, in passing, always, still catching, 22
where the past itself snags and threatens to undo
the present and the future too, the tear a tear loosed free
a timeless sore, the wound unwound in perpetuity.
Conceived on 22nd January, 2022
Completed on 22nd February 2022
To see what perpetual calendars are currently available for sale, click here.