Watchs

[Pudcat]

I have that at one time in the U.K men would often wear two watchs on chains in their waistcoats and they were both set at different times.
This they said was because time in villages veried and the only constant time was what was known as "Railway Time" and the other one was set to "My Masters Time"
As anybody heard of this story and is there any truth in it?

[jno]

before the railways, every town had its own time. Exeter's was a few minutes later than London, and so on. When the railways were introduced it became necessary to have the whole country on the same time. This was 'railway time'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_time

Dunno about my master's time.

[heathfield]

In the period shortly after 'railway time' was introduced, many places, (for a while, at least), still stuck to the local time they had been used to. 'My master's time' would be used by a worker whose employer continued to use local time.