Haworth mean time - Telegraph Stands the church clock at five-and-twenty past five? Nay, lad, she's going great guns - you could set your mobile phone by her. Thus we should like to imagine conversation in picturesque Haworth this morning, after the defeat of deranged health and safety diktats. Like a West Riding version of the Mad Hatter's tea party, the clock had been stopped at 5.25 for a year, since Jens Hislop, 73, a retired policeman, was prohibited from climbing a stepladder to the winding-loft, as had been his way for 23 years. This, mind, is the church where Patrick Brontë was parson, and his habit (to dispel tension) was to fire a pistol from the parsonage window each morning. There was no health in those days, and precious little safety. Now that local benefactors have paid a joiner to spruce up Mr Hislop's woodwork, the citizens of Haworth can once more give visitors a cheery time of day.