SOMETIME back in the 1970s, an acquaintance of mine announced he was closing down his wholesale watch and jewellery business and asked if I would like to buy a rather posh Swiss watch at cost. Even then, it was pretty expensive, but I succumbed.

A few years later, I took it into an equally posh shop to have the battery replaced and was told that it would have to go away for servicing, which would take two weeks and cost £70.

Now in those days, you could get a car serviced for that so the watch went into the back of a drawer and I bought a cheaper one which I have worn every day since.

Until now, that is, because I have met David Hales, a craftsman left over from yesteryear and one of the great characters on Skipton's High Street market.

The battery on No Two watch went at Easter and, out of curiosity, I asked David, who runs his stall outside Rackhams on Fridays and Saturdays, if he thought he could do anything with its 30-year-old predecessor.

"Bring it in," he said. I did and he replaced the batteries in both instruments and they have both being going strong (I almost said like clockwork!) ever since. The total cost: £4. For both!

And the reason for that is quite simple: David Hales is one of that fast-disappearing breed who puts the love of his craft before monetary reward. It is almost as if you are doing him a favour by letting him care for your timepieces.

"There aren't many skilled clock and watchmakers left," he told me over a pint of shandy in the Red Lion after yet another wet, windy day on the market. "And those that are prefer to work on clocks.

"There's more money in clocks, particularly antique ones, but watches are small and intricate and that's what fascinates me. I make enough money to get by on - I would rather take the dog a walk than work for brass I don't need."

David was born in Nelson in 1951 when there were still a lot of skilled craftsmen at work in East Lancashire. The son of an electrician, he won a scholarship to the local grammar school, but turned his back on a professional career because he loved working with his hands.

He joined his father's business, then went to a local engineering company which did work for the then still thriving aviation industry: "That was a time when all aircraft instruments worked on clockwork principles. Today, of course, they are all electronic, but in those days they had to be made and repaired by skilled craftsman. Obviously, you have to get it right: if you were servicing an important instrument like an altimeter, people's lives could be at risk if it didn't function properly."

He qualified as a precision instrument maker and began to work abroad a great deal, going to airfields in Europe and learning an even wider range of engineering skills simply by watching other experts do them.

Then he came back home, got married, and prospered with a good job with Lucas, then a world-beating British instrument manufacturer and electronics firm.

But times they were a-changing and, like many craftsmen in the past five decades, he found that many of his skills were no longer required: new technology had arrived in the shape of a tiny quartz crystal which has a perfectly regular internal beat - ideal for keeping time.

"By this time, I was doing a lot of work on clocks and watches, mainly for free for friends and relatives," he recalls. "That led to me working in the clock-makers' quarter of Manchester, but getting paid for it. Then came quartz.

"Do you know that when the Japanese brought out the first battery powered quartz watches, the Swiss watch industry laid off 75 per cent of its workers? There had been a whole street in Manchester full of clock-makers. That went virtually overnight."

And that, strangely enough, was when and where I was offered my posh watch.

Those were bad times for David Hales, personally as well as professionally. His marriage ended in divorce and, some nine years ago, he moved into a static caravan on the Three Peaks site at Ingleton. That was when Skipton market first attracted his attention.

"My lifelong hobby had become my work over a period of several decades," he grinned. "And now that clockwork watches - and clocks themselves - have become virtual antiques, I thought I might be able to make a living doing what I love to do."

So David and his partner Jean run their market stall, rain and shine, just two days a week to get by and take their collie for a walk whenever they feel like it.

David Hales had shattered one of my dreams. My posh watch is nowhere near as posh as I thought it was. Had it been clockwork, now that would have been a different matter. But I can get it looked after for £2 a throw and know that it is getting lots of tender loving care. I find that deeply refreshing.