Our ancestors lived to the background noise of horses’ hooves and waggon wheels, hammers and scythes, windmills and water mills. Then came steam trains, factory whistles, klaxons, deafening cloth mills, steel works. More melodic were the coaching post horns, town crier’s bells and Sunday church bells, funeral tolling, change ringing and wedding peals and the rapid ringing bells on fire engines and ambulances. Sailors’ shifts were marked by ships bells, town clocks had large striking bells for sounding the hours, for a time when clocks were too expensive for everyone. Modest wealth might add a grandfather clock to the household items, its gentle tick, whirring to strike the hour, the measuring of lives. Later sirens were invented for fire, ambulance, police or air raids, the internal combustion engine for automobiles…
