Time Flies

I’ve always thought watches are one of the few things you carry that become your own. Through use. Daily wear, routine. Over time they take on a certain familiarity.

For a recent milestone birthday, I gave my son a wristwatch. Not because he needed one, but because it felt like an appropriate way to mark the moment. Something he would wear and use over time.

That stayed with me when I came across the story of a New Zealand airman’s watch, found in Germany more than 80 years later. The case destroyed, the movement gone—but the engraving still there: “from Dad and Mum”.

In wartime, a watch sat somewhere between personal item and part of an airman’s kit. It was relied on for timing and coordination, but unlike most equipment, it was often privately owned.

If captured, it was also one of the few possessions a prisoner might be allowed to keep. Practical, but personal.

It changes how you think about these things. Not just as objects, but as items that can outlast their original purpose.

Now, in a digital age, most of what we carry leaves no physical trace. Devices are replaced, messages disappear, records sit elsewhere. It’s harder to point to anything that endures in the same way.

A watch is different. It remains.