2015 arrived in Newton Abbot as revellers gathered around St Leonard's Clock Tower to welcome in the new year, but the town was behind the times by three-and-a-half-minutes because of a loose nut, writes John Balment.

Volunteer clock winder Cllr David Howe checked the mechanism the week before and everything was tickety-boo, and he went up again on December 30 to scare off pigeons roosting on top of the tower.

He squirted the birds with water and, as frost was fo