Two Faithfuls Save The Church Rs 50 Lakh Bill, Repair An Old Broken Clock In Under Rs 300

Church officials feared that they would have to launch a major fundraising appeal to fix a giant clock at the establishment. Grimsby Minster's clock has been stuck at 12.02 for almost 12 years. But Rick Haywood and Jay Foley managed to make it work without spending obscene amounts of money on it.

Even experts who are working on Big Ben's ?80million restoration, said scaffolding was needed around the 287ft tower, dating to 1365, to carry out external repairs.

However, cheesemaker Rick and student Jay decided to take matters into their own hands, and 'clocked' in to work.

The Sun

According to a report by The Sun, the clock mechanism is housed in a box on the wall of the bell-ringing chamber. Both gentlemen decided to look at the clock workings at the same time. Rick, of Grimoldby, Lincs, said: ¡°We did not think we could do any more damage."

¡°We found various dead pigeons gumming up the bearings. Some of the bearings were very dry. We gave it grease and WD-40 and managed to get it running. The church had one or two engineers from big clock companies and they were starting at ?40-50,000 to get it running again. We saved them at least ?40,000 so I am hoping for a meal invite," he added.

Jay, of Killingholme, Lincs, said: ¡°I think the main reason it stopped was age. When we went up there, all the gears and stuff were not in the right alignment. The minutes, hours and seconds all have separate sections, which were out of order. We got the dead pigeons out and it slowly ticked along after we greased it and cleaned it out.¡±

The duo used their mobile phones to set the time for the four clockfaces on the tower. Jay said: ¡°It is one or two minutes out because it took that long to tighten everything up.¡±

Church warden Chris Daniel, added, ¡°It¡¯s amazing because you would not believe how much hassle you get when a church clock is not working.¡±

The Sun

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