Near to the hour, people gather.

And wait. And watch. Their gaze fixed on a clock on the wall. The time is immaterial. The moment not so.

They’re waiting for an act. Well, half an act.

A cuckoo clock that just “cucks” – doesn’t do the whole “cuckoo”.

You don’t get the whole shebang.

The clock is ticking off the minutes, and the seconds. And then, on the hour, a tiny door flies open, and the cuckoo squawks “cuck….!

“Just cuck, not cuckoo” said Michael Cox, a retired watchmaker, volunteer and benefactor at the Western Bay Museum down busy main street in Katikati.

And there’s good reason for an underperforming, half an act, cuckoo.

“One of the bellows has had it,” said Cox. The clock is old and you can only “cuckoo” for so many years before your bellows give out.

Inside the clock there are two small wooden bellows covered with leather or synthetic fabric. They’re connected to the clock’s movement, and they push air through pipes, like and organ, to make the two notes of the cuckoo call.

The “cuck” clock, which has been accorded permanent display status at Western Bay Museum in Katikati. Photo / Bob Tulloch

Bad reputation

The bird’s cry is one of the delights of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, but the bird is not.

Its name is apparently derived from the word ‘cuckold’ meaning a man betrayed by his wife which reflects the cuckoos mating habits.

The ‘Jezebel’ bird will lay several eggs to several males in several different nests each season. It’s the only bird not to rear its own young, using other birds to handle incubation and feeding duties.

If it were human, it has been said, the cuckoo would be branded ‘a rogue, a fraudster and a cheat’.

Regardless, the cuckoo is a party piece at the museum. Still quaint and cute, the cuckoo performs on request.

“Visitors spot the clock and naturally want to see and hear the cuckoo.”

So staff adjust the weights that drive the clock movement, sweep the hands close to the hour and wait a minute or so for the cheeky cuckoo to perform.

“The performances are to order. The clock’s not running all the time,” said Western Bay Museum manager Paula Gaelic.

The tiny and tired cuckoo will give command performances of its “cuck” for visitors. Photo / Bob Tulloch

And even though the bird is ‘tired’, it is resilient and has ensured its own survival. It’s gone up on permanent display at the museum.

Exhibitions, like the recent clock exhibition, come and go but the cuckoo clock just keeps on ‘cuck-ing’.

Global novelty

“We decided it sat comfortably in the setting of the pioneer kitchen at the museum,” said Gaelic. Because obviously the clock had special significance when brought to New Zealand by an immigrant European family.

Designs of cuckoo clocks are many and varied. This one, with its elaborate pheasant, rabbit, stag and gun motifs, could have adorned a hunting lodge in the alps.

“It’s an iconic clock that many young people wouldn’t understand and so it deserves to be seen.” said Gaelic.

An iconic (and global) novelty after a ‘Herr’ called Franz Anton Ketterer got the idea from a church organ in 1730. It has evolved over nearly 300 years.

There’s now a Black Forest Clock competition and workshop each year with the more flash and elaborate clocks selling for $20,000-plus.

Or you can look at your phone for the time and it costs nothing. But no entertainment, no “cuck”.

In safe hands

The clock also points to a rich vein of expertise and knowledge within the ranks of the Western Bay Museum’s volunteer service.

Like Cox, who learned his watch making craft in Clerkenwell, South West London, an enclave of clock and watchmakers, jewellers and other creatives.

After six-plus decades in the industry, he’s not an obsessed hobbyist. His walls aren’t covered in clocks.

“How many clocks do you have at home?” he asked pointedly.

“Well, none,” I said. Point made.

All his clocks, mostly mechanical ‘eight day clocks’, were inherited when the self-proclaimed “ten pound Pom” arrived in New Zealand and bought a watchmaking business from a Scot called Bill Spooner.

“They were in boxes, and stayed in boxes, until I gave them to the museum.”

He remembers all the small detail because, said Cox, watchmakers are finicky people – they’re about precision, detail, specifics.

Their business is their personality.

And it’s a business Father Time has himself caught up with. Cox said watchmakers, and their craft, are becoming obsolete, victims of changing times.

“You can buy a watch for $25 these days, but to repair a mechanical watch would cost a lot more. Sad, very sad.”

The consumer isn’t interested in mechanical watches.

“They’re all quartz crystal movements.”

There is little need for more ‘Michaels’.

But the cuckoo, and the rest of the museum’s clock collection is in safe hands, good hands with 60 years watchmaking experience.