Reality is merely an illusion

Requiring us to suspend disbelief, automata are so much more than toys, demonstrating the separation between the created and the creator, discovers

-  David Profumo

I FIRST contacted the House of Automata to enquire about restoration of a mechanical silver bird from my Cabinet of Curiosities, which I recall sweetly singing when I was a boy, but which has sat silent these past few decades. Michael Start sent an estimate and suggested we pay a visit, so my wife, Helen, and I drove north to Forres on the Moray coast (she is keeper of the purse strings for my collections) and there, just off the high street, we entered a house of wonders.

An automaton is a mechanical figure that appears to come to life—part of a long tradition of kinetic art and engineered entertainment. Mr Start and his sculptor wife, Maria, now have the largest collection (more than 600 items) that is open to the public in the UK.

On admission, they give you a ticket bearing the image from the exhibit they think you most resemble. Alas, mine was a crazed, bald clown. However, this is very much in the spirit of this energetic and witty couple, who met when Mr Start (who had been a fireman down in Finchley, London, until he broke his back) was retraining as an horologist in Hackney. He was introduced to the esoteric world of automata by a flamboyant dealer called Jack Don- ovan, who had a stall in Portobello Market and, for some unfathomable reason, styled himself ‘The Man who Fought the Monkey in the Dustbowl’. Mr Start began to restore automata, as well as clocks, and started his own collection.

The age-old quest to create life is, of course, the stuff of legends, from Talos of Crete to Blade Runner, and history records such artefacts back in ancient times—Heron of Alexandria invented a mechanical owl, King Solomon had a bejewelled eagle that crowned him, Philo of Byzantium fashioned an air-driven serving maid, Leonardo da Vinci made a rearing lion for Louis XII and Jacques de Vaucanson fabricated a feeding and defecating duck.