A PENSIONER who has climbed a ladder to wind up a church clock for more than 40 years has been banned from the tradition due to health and safety.
Tom Monk, 82, has wound the clock of St Nicolas Church in Witham since 1969.
Every week, Tom has gone up the same wooden stepladder to turn the handle for the church clock 400 times.
But despite carrying out the task on more than 2,200 occasions and winding the clock 894,400 times, Mr Monk has been told that health and safety concerns mean his time as the church's clock winder is up.
Instead, the church is trying to raise £4,500 to enable the clock to be wound by someone standing on the ground.
Mr Monk said the decision had left him bemused, especially as he has never had an accident performing the task.
He said: "The church wants to wind the clock in a different way by bringing a winding handle down to the floor.
"But I have never had any problems and would have been quite happy to carry on."
The decision to stop Mr Monk's weekly wind-up means the church clock is no longer in use, with the hands set to 12 until the money can be raised for the new winding mechanism.
Mr Monk admitted that he was ready for a rest after so many years of winding the clock, which he has carried out every Wednesday. But the father-of-four is planning to carry on as a bell-ringer with the church.
He admitted that his dedication to the task did cause a few tensions over the years.
He said: "My children have been saying that it is about time I packed it in, but I never take any notice of them.
"One Christmas morning several years ago, we went to church and I wound the clock, yet somehow the stepladder had started to come loose.
"I brought it home with me on Christmas morning to repair it so I was not very popular that day."
The winding task takes Mr Monk, a retired draftsman, 15 minutes each time and to stop getting worn out, he alternates between his left and right arm.
He said: "I climb the 28 steps to the church's ringing chamber and then get the stepladder out and climb to the top of it.
"There is a knack to the winding, but once you have done it for 43 years, it's pretty straight-forward."
Mr Monk, whose wife Jean died in 1992, said he had not ruled out returning to his task of winding the clock once the new mechanism has been installed.
Roy Belsham, of the St Nicolas Church Parochial Council, which took the decision, said health and safety concerns were key.
He said: "Of course when the clock first went up, people did not think about health and safety in those days, but times have changed.
"Climbing a ladder to wind the clock was just the normal thing to do back then.
"It's a sensible decision really – Tom has not done anything wrong, it's just about dealing with a danger which can be avoided."
He said Mr Monk's age had been taken into account in the decision but stressed there had not been any problems throughout the years.
The clock was given as a gift by the author Mary Bramston to commemorate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887.
