It started with a Casio…

Neil – I guess my outlook on watches is different to Mark’s, as our backgrounds are different.Designing and making things fascinates me, and I’ve always been passionate about engineering. But this passion stems initially from when I left school at 16 and worked as a Tool & Modelmaker. 

For me the Tool Watch is king. A watch designed for specific tasks or functions. The majority of my collection are Divers watches all built for a purpose. 

My first recollection of such a watch was when I worked at WH Smiths at the age of 14. Here I bought my first watch, a Casio Calculator back in 1982. 

When in my 20’s I remember seeing for the first time a Breitling Emergency, it had a yellow dial and was probably the coolest thing I’d seen. It was almost another 30 years that I was in the position to afford to get one and I still get a huge smile every time I wear it. 

I’ve had an Apple Watch like Mark and like him got fed up of my watch doing too much. So that was sold and I started to buy the odd Vintage diver. 

Most of them are from the early 1960’s the early 2000’s and love them all.  Some come in to my collection for a while,  then out again, but slowly the numbers grow. I  do spend a lot of time looking for that next one, trying to scratch that itch. 

My every day wear for work is a G-Shock DW-5610, such a perfect watch, but the minute I get in I swap it out for one of my old divers. 

One of the greatest things about my collection is sharing them with Mark,  we do have very similar tastes, which I guess is not surprising.