Timeless Town

This song is really about vandalism and who pays for it!

In February of 2004, or thereabouts, scaffolding had been erected around the clock tower of St Mary’s Church in Diss, to enable the fitting of the fine gold-painted cupola that now crowns the noble edifice. Enterprising vandals seized the opportunity to remove and dispose of the hands of the clock. Later the same year, vandals tore down the Christmas decorations and local shopkeepers declined to buy more because they would only be vandalised again. Somehow, the story got into the press and even national television and Diss was branded the meanest town in the land.

Here is a musical memory of the occasions, with apologies to Cole Porter for borrowing a little tiny bit of the introduction to his song I love Paris.

Verse 1

Every time that I look down on this timeless town

And its fine church built with many a rock

I gaze at its tower to check up on the hour

Wondering… who pinched the hands from off the clock?

Chorus

I asked my old friend Raymond and he said it was not he

Police Inspector, Charlie said “I know - it wasn’t me!”

True to say, crime doesn’t pay - so it’s down to me and you

When premiums and Council Tax are due

Verse 2

Now our cupola stands proud – safely nested on the tower

With golden paint that glisters in sun’s rays

And re-minds us of his guilt – the night the scaffolding was built

Who scaled the clock and took the measure of our days?

Chorus & Verse 3

We thought our lives were standing still but the ringing of the till

Mark the reason for life’s business and its rhyme

In dark depths of the Mere the evidence is clear

But, whose fingerprints are on the hands of time?

Chorus and Verse 4

The town was decked and lighted but the fiendish vandal blighted

The glory our festive Christmas scene

Shamed in the national news - we all had interviews

What under-handed bounder made us look so mean?