A watch

When I bought this, it was what my father might have called the ‘cooking’ Breitling - the entry-level model. It’s a bit shiny, but as Breitlings go, this is quite a good-looking one.  I bought it in a jewellers on Fifth Avenue in New York in the mid-90s. I really wanted an IWC Mark XV, but I couldn’t afford it - something the sales assistant was very nice about.  

In 1998, I gave it to my sister to look after while I went to Tibet for three weeks. She’d only had it a couple of days when it stopped; so she unscrewed the crown to wind it, but it came off in her hands. She refused to tell me what the repairs cost, nor would she accept any money from me; but she was a poorly-paid junior doctor in the NHS at the time, and it clearly wasn’t an insignificant amount, given that she still reminds me of it over a decade later.  

Then two years ago, I lent it to my wife. A pin popped out of the strap while she was crossing the Millennium bridge in London, and it fell off her wrist, nearly disappearing into the Thames. Perhaps this is a watch that refuses to be worn by a woman. I’m sure someone in their marketing department would love that.  

Please never, ever, refer to a watch as a ‘timepiece’.