Man uncovers 23-year-old alarm clock with wake-up call from his late mother

A man from Hampshire has uncovered a 23-year-old alarm clock, which still contains a final recording from his late mother.

Ed Morrish, 41, who is from Leeds but is now living in Hampshire, re-discovered the clock when digging through his garage.

The audio and comedy producer tweeted: “When I went to university in 1998, my mother gave me an alarm clock where you could record your own alarm, so I told her to record it.

“I’ve just found it, and it still works. She died in 2006, and this is the only recording of her voice that I have.”

In the recording, his mum is heard shouting: “Get up Edward”, and it is the first time Mr Morrish’s two children, aged nine and 11, have been able to hear their late grandmother’s voice.

Mr Morrish told the PA news agency: “I wasn’t shocked, really; I knew what it was as soon as I dug into the box, so I was just happy it still worked.

“Lovely to be reminded of her voice and I laughed of course, because it was such a ridiculous thing for her to record.”

After sharing a video on Twitter, the inventor of the clock replied.

Tom Lawton said: “Oh my! This is amazing Ed. This was my first invention, WakeYoo. I’m so moved to hear this and hope you are well.”

Mr Morrish said he used the alarm clock throughout his time at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, and it survived a further two years in central London eight years in Harrow and 10 years in his current Hampshire home.

“Nothing scares you awake like your mum, he said, adding: “I cannot imagine it lasted past moving in with my now-wife in 2004.”

He said the family was moving stuff in the garage when they came across the two-decades-old clock.

“The batteries had done that weird thing where they go all salty, but I took them out, scraped the contacts clean, put in new batteries – and my kids heard my mum’s voice for the first time,” he said.

Their reaction was “stunned”, he said, and they asked, “That’s what she sounded like!?”

Mr Morrish added: “It’s going by the side of my bed so when the kids want to wake me up they can get my mum to do it.”