he'd lent the watch facing a problem or simply doing day-to-day things and trying to sort them out, using the watch. New series (2004–2005) The second run was significantly different to the original. According to the final opening sequence, the watch simply flew through Bernard's window. The character of the "postman" did not exist, and Bernard seemed to be the only person in the world who had such a watch. His best friend Nathan knew about the watch. This series revolved mainly around Bernard's school, Pentup Primary, where he'd usually get the better of his bullying schoolteacher Ms Yvonne Savage and a popular girl called Nicolette who is his arch rival. Novel As well as the TV series, Andrew Norriss also wrote a novelisation based on the first three series of the show in 1999. In the context of the novel, Bernard received the watch from an elderly aunt, who had received it from her husband who acquired it from an old friend, although they never knew how the friend had obtained the watch as by the time he passed it on he had suffered a stroke and couldn't speak. Unlike in the TV show where using the watch was harmless, the watch has a subtle side-effect on the user in that it uses up the iron molecules in their blood, leaving regular users vulnerable to anaemia requiring them to consume iron supplements on a regular basis, causing Bernard to collapse when he avoids taking the iron-tainted drink provided by his aunt because he didn't like the taste and was unaware of the side-effects of the watch. On a personal note, Bernard is only living with his father, as his mother died before the events of the novel, and Karen is also shown as living with a single parent with her mother having divorced before she was born. At the novel's conclusion, the watch is briefly stolen by a woman who once worked as a housekeeper for Bernard's aunt, but she is captured when the watch runs down and she tries to threaten Bernard for the key. Ill at various points throughout the book, Bernard's aunt dies in the penultimate chapter, but her spirit appears to him after her death to tell him that the true purpose of the watch is for 'learning'. In the final chapter, Bernard uses the watch key on a chain his aunt gave him to