On Friday I
climbed up the Elizabeth Tower at the Palace of Westminster, more commonly
known as Big Ben.
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| (In case you don't know what it looks like.) |
I went up the
inside, not the outside, by the way; I’m no Peter Duncan. While I once took
part in a circus-skills workshop led by him at the Gordon Craig Theatre as a
child, we didn’t cover how to cling to a massive clock face. If we had, I’d
have shimmied up Stevenage Clock Tower like a shot.
I was surprised
by how small it was on the inside, like a TARDIS in reverse. It confused me how
something that dominates the skyline and public consciousness could be so compact.
I’m not saying you can fit it in your pocket, but its relatively slight scale
was marked; particularly when you walk around the inside of the faces.
The tour is
planned impeccably. It’s done tightly, to a stopwatch. We’d left Portcullis
House reception at 9:10am and by 9:15, we were a third of the way up. We were
in the room housing the clock mechanism for both the half-past and quarter-to
chimes, and next to Big Ben itself - the bell, I mean – in time to watch it
toll the hour.
Standing next to
it as it chimed was profound. The sound it makes is ingrained in our awareness.
It’s symbolic of so much: passing time, the passing years and all the lives
that passed in war. It has gravitas and finality. I’ve heard it often and yet I
never thought I’d see it. At risk of sounding like a UKIP supporter, it made me
proud to be British.
(While its volume
made me glad I had earplugs.)
From 1961-1965,
my mum worked in an office, both in view and earshot of Big Ben. The sound she
heard then was the same sound I heard fifty years later. She’d never anticipate
she’d have a son who’d one day stand so close to the source. If she did, her
psychic ability would be alarmingly specific.
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| My mum's old office (right). |
It’s fair to say it’s
something I’ll never forget. Howard Donald was right.