Massive Benjamin.

On Friday I climbed up the Elizabeth Tower at the Palace of Westminster, more commonly known as Big Ben.

(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.

My mum's old office (right).

It’s fair to say it’s something I’ll never forget. Howard Donald was right.