I have no idea what you mean by a timer/stopwatch. I don't know of any feature that would let you add a timer or stopwatch to Mail and Messages. Could you provide us with a screenshot of what is happening.
If you don't know, you take a screenshot by pressing your home and power button at the same time. The resulting image will show up in the Photos app.
You may have to make a couple more posts before you can upload an image to the forum. I think you need thee posts to get upload privileges.