Chapter 1: Swiss Made.
Henri here! Hello. Grüezi! Здравствуйте. Enchanté, I’m sure. So I’ve been cast as the Moser historian, and for chronology’s sake, I suppose we ought to go back to the very beginning of this story. We’ll set the scene with my father, Papa Moser.
Papa Moser was Heinrich to acquaintances, Henny to his good friends, and born in 1805, in Schaffhausen, Switzerland.
His father before him – the whole family, really – were watchmakers. It was ‘in the blood’ as they say.
It was supposed to be thick in my veins too, but they couldn’t have been more wrong! I would rather have tried my luck riding an unbroken stallion any day… and as it happens, I did.
But back to our hero, my Papa. Maybe it was being born in Switzerland that did it, but he really caught the clockwork obsession. Luckily it was nothing to do with cuckoo clocks (I’m not sure I could ever have lived that down, no matter how many silver sabres I collected). He entered the family business almost as soon as he could walk, and everyone was proud.
My dear Papa had soon garnered quite a reputation – even at such a young age – for uncompromising excellence.