In 1991 I was employed by Corum Watch Company in the United States. My territory was the eleven Western states. In June of that year, I and two other members of the Corum business in the U.S. were invited to Switzerland to visit the factory in La Chaux-de-Fonds in the month of June. For me it was a kind of homecoming as I had returned to work for Corum after six years working for Audemars Piguet Watch Company in the U.S. I had worked with Corum from 1982 to 1985 and had visited the factory at that time.
The owners of Corum were the Bannwart family which included the founder of Corum and his son Jean-Rene. These men were genuinely decent and artistically and commercially talented individuals that were nonetheless very Swiss in their hard work and down to earth values of family and community. Polished, well traveled with excellent manners and culture.
The Corum factory employed perhaps one hundred fifty personnel and there was very much a family environment. One evening Jean-Rene and several of his staff informed the three visiting Americans that we were going into the hills for a barbeque and to dress casually. The staff included the director of publicity and a charming young woman who worked in the sales department.
We got into two Range Rovers and headed into the mountains above the valley floor where the city of La Chaux-de-Fonds is situated. The city is in the Jura Mountains and this area has been involved in watch making for more than 200 years. As we rose above the valley floor Jean-Rene began to describe our destination. As we rose on paved roads we could see a fairly large farm with white buildings which was described as a very famous dairy. We approached the fields surrounded the dairy buildings and began to go onto a dirt road. We stopped at one point to open a gate and to shoo away several cows to prevent them getting out of the gate while we moved the cars. If you have never been to Switzerland the cows all have large bells and collars with Swiss Alpine designs on them. They make a pleasant gonging as they move.
We passed the dairy buildings and it was pointed out that at this very farm is where the Swiss Watch Industry actually began.
In the 1600’s watches were made primarily in England and the technology of the day were key wound mechanisms. A traveler on horse back traveling from England to Germany had come to La Chaux-de-Fonds with a timepiece that was broken and asked if there was someone who could repair the watch. Someone in the village suggested the traveler go up the mountain to the dairy on the hill and ask for the son of the dairyman. It seems the boy was quite well known as being handy with machines. So the traveler made the trip up the hill and met the boy and asked the boy to fix his watch. The boy promised to do his best and the gentleman traveler continued his journey with a promise to return after the winter snows had melted.
The boy spent the winter months taking apart the watch, examining the mechanism and made careful drawings of the parts and discovered the broken parts and repaired them, and when the traveler returned in the spring he presented the repaired watch and from that day devoted himself to the making of timepieces in the winter months when much of the farm work was impossible due to the abundant alpine snow. As legend would have it, this dairy farm is reputed to be the place where the art of watch making in this famous watch manufacturing region started. Perhaps it is a true story. It certainly seems likely that some talented and bright young boy with a facility for machines could be fascinated and dedicated to discover how this object worked and to use this instrument for inspiration for a life’s work and the foundation of a culture. Young Swiss men have been doing just this thing for generations.
The story was completed in a four hundred year old farm house on the property next to the dairy’s meadow. A stone farm house with two rooms with a wood burning pit to warm the two rooms and a wood rectangular roof that is open at the top to let the smoke out of the building. No plumbing, no electricity and a bare stone floor with simple furnishing just as the people would have used when this home was built. We cooked over the fire and told stories till we’d had enough wine to see the need to return to town and our hotel. I dreamed of that young boy that night and marveled that it takes but one person to create something that can change a culture or even the world. Without Swiss timepieces my life would certainly be different.
p.s. La Chaux-de-Fonds is a major watch manufacturing center in which Corum, Girard Perregaux and numerous companies are situated. The Musee International de Horlogerie (Watch and Clock Museum) is the finest museum of timepieces and a must see for any watch aficionado. The town also is famous for several buildings designed by the architect Le Corbusier.
