At the Third Stroke

"At the Third Stroke. It will be four, four, and 40 seconds, precisely." "At the Third Stroke. It will be four, four, and 55 seconds, precisely." Old timers like me can remember when time was voiced on the telephone when you dialed '1984'. To get the 'Speaking Clock'! or were told the time in tolls of local church bells. or the number of gongs of town hall clocks like 'Big Ben', chimes on the hour, half or quarter. When you could ring up on 'me old telephone' at some ungodly hour in day or night, and hear the recorded time precisely there and then. When your grandfather's job was to chime the time in the hall. When God told you the time with church bell gongs and rings. Can you remember when you lost track of the time, when you lost track of the count of number of the chimes or of tolls of bells? Less important perhaps at midnight than midday, but this had you reaching for the 'Bakelite' black telephone to hear the time precisely, "At the third stroke". Or you could wait for the 'pips' on the hour, the six short sounds on the radio, still going strong after 90 long years. pip, pip, pip, pip, pip, pip! There 'tis some ungodly hour precisely!