Now late into his career, Ray Saunders is finally starting to downsize.
“It’s my favourite little clock,” he says holding up a golden ornate timepiece.
Saunders has been incorporating all kinds of comical figurines into his latest creations.
“I got to start making some more of those, so I’ve been collecting for the last 10 years,” said Saunders.
He’s been designing and building for the past 63 years, but it’s his steam clock in Gastown that’s made him Vancouver’s most famous horologist.
“It’s kind of like a grandfather clock and Big Ben in London. That’s where I got my inspiration,” Saunders told This is BC.
He often shows up and surprises tourists by revealing that it only went up in 1977.
“I say to them, ‘How old do you think this clock is?’,” he said. “‘Oh, it’s about 100 years old. It was built with Gastown.’ I say, ‘I think the guy who built it is still alive’. ‘They say no he’s been dead for years’,” said Saunders.
It was the first of seven public steam clocks Saunders built. His work is also a popular draw in other parts of the world.
He sticks to the stairs now when called in to consult on some of the city’s clocks. An on-site fall off a ladder four years ago left him with numerous injuries.
“A fractured skull. I had 15 stitches,” Saunders said. “They thought I was dead, but I came back to life.”
His working days are winding down, although he still makes occasional house calls to fix a grandfather clock. But it’s a return to those early, much smaller designs that will now be taking up most of his time.
“I got a few orders for them already,” said Saunders. “Now that I have a little recognition, I can maybe ask for a bit more money when I build them.”
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