Bong . . . should Big Ben be silenced?

STOPPING the chimes on Big Ben for four years while work is being done on the building is not the death of common sense (Mail). It is a thoroughly sensible precaution to protect the hearing of the workmen.

COLIN PRICE, Ilford, Essex. HOW ridiculous that it is ‘unacceptable’ for workers to wear ear defenders while repairing Big Ben. During my 30 years at work, I had to wear them and it never bothered me. I was on HMS Ark Royal servicing aircraft

PETER EWER, Arundel, W. Sussex.

THE Commons fiasco regarding the silencing of Big Ben proves MPs are incapable of organising a hush-up in a belfry.

CLIVE WHICHELOW, London SW19. THE bells of Big Ben should ring out in celebration on March 29, 2019, when we leave the EU. M. PETERS, Stanmore, Middlesex.

IF THEY work round the clock, they could do it in half the time.

KEITH STILL, Rayleigh, Essex. WHEN I was a military attache with the British Embassy in Saigon, Vietnam, we were invited to celebrate New Year at a ball at the Indian brigadier’s grand house. My task was to secretly obtain a recording of Big Ben chiming midnight, which I did with the help of the BBC and the British Forces Broadcasting Service. At midnight, when the Big Ben recording was played to everyone’s surprise and delight, a senior Australian Army officer exclaimed: ‘Big Ben! The sound that kept the Empire together in World War II!’ STUART HOLMES, Camberley, Surrey.

WHY the fuss about Big Ben being silenced until 2021? That’s only just after twenty past eight!

IAN DUNN, Chigwell, Essex. IF WE are losing Big Ben’s chimes, why can’t we also dispose of the Lords, an institutional anachronism that is long past its sell-by date? GEORDIE CAMPBELL, Bognor Regis, W. Sussex.