In his youth, Francis Brodie enjoyed making clocks out of Meccano and fell into horology as a career after a spell of unemployment. After training at Hackney College, he worked for a number of museums including The Museum of London.

He began teaching Clock Repair classes after filling in for an unwell friend, and has been teaching now for over 25 years. He joined Loughton College a decade ago and was teaching the BHI Course, specialising in the Theory elements. He became the first tutor at EFHC when it was founded, and has helped to develop the Clockmaking section.

When not teaching he works to maintain and preserve a range of private and public Clock Collections.