I realise that Grinidgetime has been “off-air” for almost a year. As they say “it’s been complicated” anyway I now have more time to dedicate to the world of British watch brands.

To this end this weekend I attended my first British Watchmakers’ Day, I missed the first event last year due to bad calendar management. Anyway, I was there this year and as expected it is a really great event. The event is organised by the Alliance of British Watch and Clockmakers, so being a club member I had easy access to a ticket for morning slot of 10:00 to 12:00.

On entering the Royal Horticultural Society’s Hall I was met immediately with a long queue, which given the time I assumed was for coffee, nope, it was the line to buy the limited edition Fears/Studio Underdog Gimlet. Nicholas from Fears was working the waiting queue in his own personable way. The Gimlet was clearly the “main event” of the show.

My main purpose of attending this meet-up for me was to re-connect with the British watch people I knew so I didn’t approach it with the idea of highlighting all the great watches and all the brands that have been established recently. I also only had a two hour window.

So I worked my way around the show hoping to catch a few words, whilst not distracting the the people on the stand explaining and selling their wares. First stop, Pinion Watches, my company with who Grinidgetime effectively started. Piers was showing a nice range of watches including the special for the show, Neutron Violet SE, which I now read has sold out.

Leaving Pinion in peace I moved onto Schofield, another company I always consider one of the original British brands. Giles was also showing two special watches for the show, the B6 is a watch from the bottom of the sea. A limited edition in two colours, Deep Blue and Shallow Green,.

Then prompted by very positive comments from two friends I stopped by the Elliot Brown stand. Personally I had taken my eye of this company until two friends visited the stand last year and reported to me that they were the friendliest people present. Credit were credit is due, Ian from the company was indeed very personable, he went to great lengths to explain the impressive Holton Professional, the watch issued to the Royal Marines SBS.

Keeping with a military theme I passed by the busy Vertex stand, to say hi and see if there might be any chance of getting hold of a M100 in bronze. I get slightly distracted so did not get my hands on the M60 show special. I did however try on the M36 that I had not seen before, which as you can see from the image below looks great in this smaller 36mm case size.

Next up were my compatriots from Emsworth in Hampshire, Zero West. They have also brought a new watch series to the show, the S5e and S6e Spitfire Escape watch. Both in a new case design. The watches use steel from the engine of a special reconnaissance Spitfire.

II left the stand promising to visit the the studio in Hampshire.

I have a couple of other brands to mention but in the interest of time I will leave them to a follow up post.