Finding himself unemployed in his mid-fifties after 25 years off shore in a failing oil industry, Brian Marshall was determined to find a challenge he would enjoy.
Despite being an ardent Raith Rovers supporter he knew a career as a footballer wasn’t likely so he turned to clock and watch repairing, a hobby that began when he worked as an engineer with Marconi in the 1970s.
“I was working on an new electronics package they were producing,” Brian, 57, explains.
“They had previously employed watchmakers as the old equipment had been clockwork in nature and it was then that I became interested in watches.”
With no previous experience of catering, he and wife Lesley decided they’d like to open a traditional tearoom with a quirky sideline in time pieces.
“We had always visualised having a place of our own and after searching for premises all over Fife we were charmed with Tayport and its people and decided to buy the old post office,” says Brian.
“With Lesley, a keen baker, as the brains and my technical knowhow we managed to design a tearoom we would like to go to ourselves. Needless to say we ate a lot of our own produce along the way, purely in the interests of research of course,” he smiles.
Transforming the old post office was a challenge, especially when woodworm and dry rot were discovered.
But all the effort was worth it and Chimes is now exactly as they visualised it: a Victorian-style tearoom where tea or coffee comes in proper coffee jugs and teapots, with china cups, and accompanied by cakes, pastries and sandwiches. And throughout, old clocks tick and chime comfortingly in the background, while fine china figurines and collectables sit alongside timepieces for sale and for repair by Brian.
Running the tearoom, with the help of right hand woman Jo Davies and Saturday girl Ellie McDougall, has enriched their lives: “It’s wonderful to meet new people and be my own boss – I get real job satisfaction,” says Brian. “We have made many friends in Tayport and are enjoying a stress-free life – apart from when the wife burns a cake!”
Chimes 01382 552264
clindsay@thecourier.co.uk
Did you know…?
Whilst the custom of drinking tea dates back to the third millennium BC in China and was popularised in England during the 1660s by King Charles II and his wife the Portuguese Infanta Catherine de Braganza, it was not until the mid 19th Century that the concept of ‘afternoon tea’ first appeared.
Tea consumption increased dramatically and Anna, the 7th Duchess of Bedford, is said to have complained of “having that sinking feeling” during the late afternoon.
At the time it was usual for people to take only two main meals a day, breakfast, and dinner at around 8 o’clock in the evening. The solution for the Duchess was a pot a tea and a light snack, taken privately in her boudoir during the afternoon.
Later friends were invited to join her in her rooms at Woburn Abbey and it proved so popular that the Duchess continued it when she returned to London, sparking a trend across fashionable society.
Many visitors from overseas still imagine that, in the words of the well-known song, ‘at half past three, everything stops for tea’.
Information thanks to www.historic-uk.com and www.afternoontea.co.uk
