The Sound of Craftsmanship Podcast | In the Tick of Time: Craig and Rebecca Struthers

We meet Craig and Rebecca Struthers, husband and wife at the helm of Struthers Watchmakers. Creating new watches and repairing others that are at times centuries old, the duo is responsible for helping us manage one of our most precious resources: time.

Mechanical timepieces, of course, also assign that resource with one of the most distinguishable of sounds: the tick. The tick of a watch, says Rebecca, is like a heartbeat – and just as with a heartbeat, it can be used to check health. Yet, the tick we know and love is rarely understood for what it truly is: three separate ticks in such quick succession as to be misinterpreted as just one. It speaks to the extreme precision with which watches must function – and, equally the expertise and craftsmanship it takes to make or repair them.

Based in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter, in a workshop dating from the 1770s, they are currently undertaking “Project 248”, their first watch made entirely within their studio. Using watch movements developed in the 19th century, machines that date up to the 1970s, and a twist of contemporary (but evergreen) aesthetics, they are skilfully making relevant a craft that has been with us for 250 years.