For so many of us, our appreciation of watches begins with our fathers. Sometimes it starts with a big birthday or graduation gift, but it can take root long before. I can still remember my fascination at the loud ticking of my dad’s Omega Seamaster watch and the weight of it in my hand when I was a young child.

A luxury watch is special in its own right, but history and heritage only add value (however intangible). An heirloom watch is a physical connection with the past and, if you’re lucky, a memento of a loved one. And as we grow older, the watches we wear take on a new significance as items that we will one day hand down to our children. You don’t have to own a Patek Philippe to be looking after your watch for the next generation…

As we celebrate Father’s Day, we collected a few stories – some long, some short – that show how influential our fathers (and grandfathers) can be in fostering our passion for watches, and how significant their watches can be to us.

Mr Giles English, co-founder of Bremont

“When I was about 16, my father gave me a watch – it meant so much to me. It’s a simple three-hand Omega with gold hands and hour markers; it once belonged to my grandfather. I don’t know exactly when he came by it – I think it might have been given to him by his wife during the war. To this day, it’s in great condition, although the original leather strap has taken a bit of wear and tear.

“On the back it’s engraved with the initials ICWE – Ian Charles Woolrych English – and when I look at my wrist, I think of him. I think about him on the D-Day beaches as a doctor, finding his cousin in a Japanese concentration camp after he was sent in to treat soldiers, and when he designed the first practical ICU ventilator at Brompton Hospital London.

“I have no idea if he was wearing the watch during all, or any, of these experiences, but I would like to think so. It was also the fact that my father had trusted me with it; he always had amazing trust in my brother Nick and myself. I was never going to lose this watch, it meant far too much to me.

“Five years after this gift, my father died in an aircraft accident. Nick, who was with him on the plane, amazingly survived and this watch – as with other family watches and clocks – played a massive role in making us want to start building our own watches. Watches really are the most amazing sentimental things to own and don’t just tell the time, but tell a story.”

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Mr Chris Grainger-Herr, CEO of IWC SCHAFFHAUSEN

“My first contact with the watch world came when I was very young, maybe three or four. My dad was really into his watches and, during a family holiday, we went to a jewellers. Dad finally wanted to make his dream come true; he was buying a Patek Philippe Nautilus, steel-on-steel with a black dial. For me, it felt like it took a whole day, and as a result he bought me a cuddly toy dog from the same shop – a St Bernard – which I called Patek, and ended up keeping for many years.

“He did many things, but began as a chemical and physical engineer; and as an engineer, he had that love for all things mechanical. If I’m honest, though, the desire for the Patek also came from a friend who had bought the same watch – good old word of mouth.

“My father passed away in 2012, but I don’t have his Nautilus – my mum wears it. The size is just right as a ladies’ watch today, because they were smaller back then. I’ve given her an IWC to wear, but she wears the Patek. So I’m still holding on – it is something I would treasure as a memory of him, but not yet.

“In the meantime, my son, who is 11, is just about reaching the age where they discover brands, what’s cool and what’s not. Through Mercedes-AMG, he has been exposed to that world of cars and mechanics, Goodwood Festival of Speed, and he still relates to mechanical things.

“Honestly, it’s a bit too early for him to be interested in watches, but I can absolutely see that one day I will give him a watch. I’m not giving too much away – he might read this interview! – but I can totally see myself giving him an engraved watch at that first major milestone. An IWC, of course, but at the end of the day everyone has to find their own way with these things, work out what they enjoy – I don’t want to push it too hard.”

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Mr Davide Cerrato, managing director of watches at Montblanc

“My father was, and is, into watches a little bit, but my first experience of receiving a nice mechanical watch from my family came when I was 18 and my great-grandfather passed away; I was given his watch.

“He was old when I knew him, of course, and my memory of him is as a very stylish man – he was well dressed and walked with a cane. The watch was a Universal Genève Tri-Compax chronograph and I thought it was really magical.

“At the time, I was fully immersed in studying for my final exams before going to university – I had about one month to go. I used the watch a little bit, but didn’t really attend to it. After my exams I went to Corsica with a few friends, taking the watch with me.

“After four or five days there, we went to the beach and I thought it was better to be careful – the watch was old and I thought there was a chance it might get damaged, or I’d scratch the plexiglass – so I left it in the car. Well, that day while we were at the beach, our car was broken into and everything was stolen. I lost the watch. I described it to the police, but there was no getting it back.

“I’d had it for such a short time and I had been so into my exams that I hadn’t really fixed it in my mind. I had no photos of it, this being a long time before smartphones. I kept a memory of it and tried to rebuild the shape of it in my head, but now I’m 50, my memory of it has melted together with everything I’ve learned about watches in the time since. These days I still keep an eye on Universal Genève chronographs at auctions, but I don’t know if I’d recognise that watch if I saw it.

“Nevertheless, I have nurtured an image of it in my mind, and it has influenced the way I think about and design watches. It was a 1970s design – and I am a child of the 1970s, so it inhabits what I’m doing today.”

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Mr Ed Walsh, co-founder of Alice Made This

“I wear an early 2000 Rolex Submariner. It was my father’s, and he gave it to me when I turned 30. He thought it would be nice to start a tradition of handing timepieces down through the family.

“My earliest memory of it was in my early twenties when my dad bought it. I remember him being like a kid at Christmas and showing me the box and all the paperwork. Honestly, I didn’t quite get the obsession then, but I do now. I guess that comes with age and a greater appreciation of finer things.

“My dad has been into watches as long as I can remember, since the mid-1980s, when he was big into TAG Heuer, but this was his first Rolex. It has huge sentimental value to me and will always remind me of him. Once my son is old enough – and responsible enough! – I will hand it on to him.”

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Mr George Bamford, founder of Bamford Watch Department

“My grandfather’s watch wasn’t particularly special – quite a nondescript round-cased gold watch from the 1960s with a brushed gold bracelet, hardly a Patek Philippe or anything. But I wanted to track it down – all I had was my memory of it, and one photograph of him wearing it, with me and my father.

“My grandfather wasn’t with his wife when he died – he was with his girlfriend. When he died, she got rid of a lot of his stuff. I got in touch and said, ‘Look, I would love to get hold of this watch’, and she said, ‘Oh, I’ve already given that away.’ To a cousin I didn’t even know I had. It took me about a year to hunt down their address, and then they would only communicate by letter, no email or phone calls, so back and forth we went. They didn’t want to sell, but every couple of months, I would write another letter and get the same angry response – ‘No, I’ve told you before, why do you keep asking? You must be joking.’

“I’m not very good at being told ‘no’ – when there’s a will, there’s a way. I was also frustrated: I kept thinking, ‘What’s the value of you having it?’ It isn’t worth a lot of money; it has sentimental value, but it had a lot more sentimental value to me than to someone who didn’t really know my grandfather.

“After a very long while – the best part of three years – with a lot of letters and with the help of this cousin’s brother, I’m pleased to say they gave in. Some money changed hands and I received the watch.

“I got my watchmakers to work on it – it was absolutely gunked up inside, the movement didn’t work and the bracelet was falling off. Once I had it cleaned up and fixed, I gave it to my father. It brought a tear to his eye – he remembered it, but had no idea I had been tracking it down. He now wears it from time to time, and I just love that he does – it’s a real money-can’t-buy watch, something that took time and effort. Embodied in that watch is the memory of my grandfather.”

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Mr Max Büsser, founder of MB&F

“I was probably seven years old when I received my very first watch, a hand-wound Jean Perret. This watch has a particular place in my heart because I would always wind it up while in bed, when my dad came to say goodnight to me. I was born in Milan, but when I was young, we moved to Lausanne, in Switzerland, and that was when my parents bought me the watch.

“It was our moment, our tradition. I would also sneak it under the bedside table lamp to charge up the lume dots and hands, so that I could look at the time once my father had switched the light out. That in turn would give me the idea, many years later, of the opening flaps that allow the lume to charge up on our Horological Machine No.5.”

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