“Once upon a time…” Children’s concepts of time are first shaped while listening to stories that generally have a beginning, a middle and an end. The progression of narrative informs them, at first unconsciously, of the passage of the time it takes to hear “and they all lived happily ever after”.

Children’s gradually increasing grasp of temporal impressions is related to their development of linguistic skills.

They are not born with them, and neither are these skills acquired automatically. Clocks in children’s bedrooms are essential furniture because they convey the important relationship between movement and sound. Most of us are familiar with the nursery rhyme that begins:

Hickory dickory dock,
The mouse ran up the clock
The clock struck one
The mouse ran down,
Hickory dickory dock.

This nonsense poem, which dates back to at least 1744, when it was first published, is of course 12 verses long. The mouse is successively replaced by a bird, dog, bear, bee, hen, cat, horse, cow, pig, duck, and finally by the mouse again:

The mouse ran up the clock,
The clock struck noon,
He’s here too soon!

All these animals feature on watch dials, to focus their young wearers’ attention on the central importance of time in daily life.

One among them is the most famous of all. Mickey Mouse made his very first appearance in a black-and white Walt Disney film cartoon, Steamboat Willie. It premiered on 18th November 1928, was the first sound cartoon, and Disney used his own voice for the animated character.

The first production model of a Mickey Mouse wristwatch appeared in 1933 at the Chicago World’s Fair, with his image printed on the paper dial, and a small disc revolving between his legs as a seconds dial, with three little mice on the go. Each watch came in a colourful rectangular tin box.

Three years later its sales figure passed 2.5m. The makers were the Ingersoll brothers, sons of a Michigan farmer, who back in 1895 had launched their $1 Yankee pocket watch (advertised as “The watch that made the dollar famous”). By 1918 they had sold more than 50m of them, which meant they knew all about marketing.

Since then, Ingersoll has led the field in character watches. Nearly 200 of them have been launched, ranging from Alice in Wonderland to Zorro. However, Sergei Eisenstein, the renowned Russian film director, said that Mickey Mouse was “America’s one and only contribution to world culture.” And the iconic little chap has been on spaceflights twice, on the wrists of Walter Schirra in Apollo 7 and Eugene Cernan in Apollo 10, in the 1960s.

The mighty Swatch Group does not ignore the ever-expanding market for children’s timepieces.

Its dedicated brand is Flik Flak, and two months ago it gave a huge party outside Zurich to celebrate its 20th birthday. Kindercity was the venue, and the amusement park was thrown open free to all children for the day. There was fun and food galore, and of course presents.

Girls received a jewellery box containing a bracelet and a beautiful (machine-washable!) Jubilee Treasure wristwatch with matching strap, while boys were given a sturdy Jubilee Treasure watch with a detachable dial, to be worn either on a camouflage strap or matching key ring.

During those first two decades Flik Flak has produced more than a thousand designs, and each of them was supplied with a cardboard model wristwatch with moveable hands. And the 12 hour numbers always appear big and bold within the minutes ring.

Children’s watches are necessarily inexpensive. And so almost all of them are cased in plastic and mounted on matching printed plastic straps.

They are the one category of timepieces which are widely available via the internet. Neither toy shops nor serious watch retailers can possibly stock all ranges on the market. Swatch shops are of course the exception. It is easy to purchase on the net watches designed for the young at less than £10, although standard delivery charges take their costs to within £1.50 of recommended retail prices, which generally start at £14.99.

That is the price of the four Sekonda models launched this month, and they fit nicely into Christmas stockings. Their names are Children’s Jet, Lipstick, Ray of Sunshine, and Baby Love.

The specifications of the latter (model no. 4626/SKU 879) are typical of the range: white dial with arabic numerals (roman numerals are obviously rare), round pink plastic case, quartz movement powered by battery, mounted on blue elasticated material covered with pink hearts, with a two-year manufacturer’s guarantee.

Slightly better value at the same £14.99 retail price is perhaps found with Sekonda’s Tropical Fish children’s watch (model no.4630/SKU453), which has the same specifications but a stainless steel case on a resin strap. The same applies to the Racer and Pink Heart models.

More overtly focused on teaching children the time are Time Teacher parts-captioned models from Sekonda, and also those manufactured by Cannibal and Timex.

The hour and minute hands are so labelled on the LongBoard Boys Watch (model no. 6101132). Priced between £25 and £30, and boy-sized with a case diameter of 25mm, this quartz piece is water-resistant down to 101 metres. OK for bathtime, then.

And now it’s bedtime. Wee Willie Winkie was written by William Miller in 1841. It starts:

Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town,
Upstairs and downstairs in his nightgown,
Tapping at the window and crying through the lock,
Are all the children in their beds, it’s past eight o’clock?

The lights are out. The time even on mobile phones should be invisible.