Single Parenthood and I: reinvention through timekeeping

I decided I wanted a watch, and was given a salutary reminder of the state of modern retail in the process.

There are times when this particular column can feel a bit like “Ian’s list of unusual things that he feels compelled to buy.” I bought a typewriter last year, and told you all about it. It's been gathering dust for a few months now, with no-one to type letters to, in case you were wondering. But such has been the nature of my life this year that self-improvement has come from reinvention, and that comes externally as well as internally.

I am not, by default, a jewellery guy. My wedding ring resides at the bottom of the English Channel, and at the time of writing there are no rings on my fingers, and there is nothing around my neck. No romantic partner - and I’ve had more of these than I ever intended to have - has ever bought me any, not implausibly because I didn’t already have any and was therefore assumed to not want any.

But there is now something on my left wrist. I bought a watch. The idea came - because I am a total rube - from a YouTube recommendation for a guy who reviews watches. He really loves watches. Knows a lot about them, too. I watched a couple of watch review videos (yes, I am aware of how unnecessarily complicated that sentence feels), and decided I wanted one too.

I can’t say exactly when the last time I had a watch was, but it was almost certainly the 1980s. The problem was that I didn’t even know what type of watch I wanted. I understood that internet adverts for watches could be disingenuous, and I felt as though this was a purchase that I needed to carry out in person.

I tried Worthing town centre, but by this point I felt as though I’d prefer a second hand one, and Worthing is a town which only partially covers audiences for that sort of thing. But a couple of weeks ago, I took off to Brighton, a town which felt like it would be perfect for the second-hand watch buyer.

I had a budget. I just didn’t know what it was. I’d almost caved in and just bought one of those Casio digital watches you can get for about £15 before thinking better of it. I looked on Amazon, and at watch websites. I found watches that were extremely ugly, and I found watches that were extremely expensive. But nothing that grabbed me.

So on this particular Saturday afternoon, I was treating myself, and I found myself in Brighton at lunchtime, with no particular place to be. And I wanted a watch. This particular town, London-by-the-Sea, Hipster Paradiso, was surely exactly the sort of place where I’d be able to get a second hand watch... wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it?

I went for a pint in the Great Eastern, my favourite Brighton pub, and sat at the table at which I’d last sat at on New Year's Eve, when the world was a different place, nursing a pint. I thought I knew where to go. Snooper’s Paradise is a Brighton mainstay, a bazaar of infinite weirdness, Tardis-like in its internal dimensions, situated in the intimate Kensington Gardens. They sell everything in there, apart from anything you need. It’s a market for the senses, in which you can find just about any item of kitsch paraphernalia that you could ever be looking for.

So, I wandered around. Right over in the back corner was a box of 1980s bongo mags; Mayfair, Escort and Hustler. I was tempted to stand at them, pull one out of the box, and shout, “Hey, I REMEMBER this one!”, until I remembered my age and that the looks that I'd get would probably be taking more me seriously than I’d intended.

But on watches… there was a case full of unwanted Casio digital watches, all selling for no more than three pounds less than a new one would have cost me. There was another glass case selling what were very new, very cheap, and not very nice watches. But otherwise… nothing. I was in there for more than an hour. By the time I’d finished in there, I'd been in there for more than an hour and I thought I must be having a stroke or something. I’d put all my eggs in this one particular basket, and it had come up blank.

I spent the rest of the afternoon traipsing around the town, feeling increasingly dispirited. I headed the Lanes, the rabbit warren of jewellery and antique shops between North Street and the seafront (achtung non-Brightonians; if you're visiting this town, it is essential that you understand the difference between the Lanes and the North Laine - to not do so is to mark yourself down as an uncouth Londoner), but they had nothing that didn’t cost an amount of money that made me hyperventilate to read.

I walked those streets for about three hours, feeling increasingly glum, before retiring back to the Great Eastern. Second-hand watches were something you could only really buy online, I had to conclude. And it makes sense. They're tiny, so postage isn't a problem, and keeping a stock of them in a shop when they’re such a personal choice doesn't really make much sense either.

I conceded defeat on this ludicrous buying a watch in person idea and opened Ebay, typed in “second hand men's watches”, and within a couple of minutes’ worth of scrolling, there it was; a 1991 Swatch with a blue-silver face and a burgundy strap. It wasn’t entirely clear whether this was a men’s or a women’s watch, but such considerations have never bothered me that much, and there was even a video which showed it merrily ticking away as proof that it was still in working order. For £30 it could be mine, and three days later, it was.

When I was a teenager, there was an oversized Swatch hanging on my bedroom wall in none more 1980s colours than grey, white and red. I had one on my wrist too. Short of a the digital one I had on my wrist in about 1983 or so, it's the only watch I actually ever remember owning.

And I can't describe what it does for me beyond making me feel about 1.5% more complete as a person. Maybe I attach too much significance to such things, but it means something inexplicable to me that I own it now, that it's back in active service and being used for its intended purpose after 34 years.

I Googled it and found it online, and there's nothing special about it. I hadn’t chanced upon an astonishingly rare one worth hundreds or thousands of pounds, or anything like that, but that didn’t matter. It's been described variously as a men’s and ladies watch, but that doesn't matter either. I’ve never been a man’s man, and I’ve never really wanted to be.

It would have been nicer had someone else seen it, thought of me, and gifted it to me, but that's okay. Quite asides from anything else, there's no-one in my life who would do that for me at the moment. That’s been next on my list of things that I need to resolve in my life for a while now, but that’s a story for another time.

For now, my watch sits on my wrist, quietly ticking away to punctuate the silence of my otherwise silent bedroom while I'm working. 2025 has been a year of destruction and rebuilding for me, so far. This watch now sits on my left wrist as a reminder of becoming that different, better person. As the year ticks over into its second half, let's put that dismal first half behind me and move onwards and upwards. I deserve better, and a watch and a new bookcase seem like good places to start, to me.