Hundreds watch as Big Ben falls silent
Hundreds gathered in Parliament Square to witness the last “bongs” of Big Ben for four years. The great bell rang for the final time at midday before it is silenced for the restoration of the Elizabeth Tower. Stephen Pound, the Labour MP, dabbed his eyes with his handkerchief, while many in the crowd filmed the moment on their mobile phones. The presence of tourists and television news crews from several countries attested to Big Ben’s global fame.
The moment may well have been preceded by an almighty, week-long ding-dong, but as midday came and went in Parliament Square yesterday, in the end, Big Ben fell silent without so much as a grumble. It was a most British reaction to a most British row, about a most British icon.
Throughout Monday morning, a crowd of around a thousand people gathered in and around the Palace of Westminster’s Elizabeth Tower, to hear those reassuring bongs for the final time before £29million of restoration work hushes them until 2021.
Under a gunmetal sky, members of the public were joined by 200 parliamentary staff and a handful of MPS, led by Labour’s Stephen Pound, in New Palace Yard in front of parliament. Over the weekend, Pound had promised that “a small group ... of like-minded traditionalists” would assemble with “heads bowed but hope in our hearts” for the 13-ton Great Bell’s last chimes. The Prime Minister, Jeremy Corbyn and others may have waded in last week, but there was no sign of them yesterday.
While they stayed away, there was a glimmer of hope revealed by Tom Brake, the MPS’ representative on the House of Commons Commission that approved the renovation plan, who told The Daily Telegraph that “manual ringing is being looked at as an option,” for the intervening years. “If that’s technically possible that is the only alternative to using the clock’s mechanism, which I’m told is much more difficult if you are having to stop and start it,” he said.
The row may not be over yet, and not all MPS had been respectful of those assembling yesterday. Conor Burns, the Foreign Secretary’s principal private secretary, had snarked to the BBC that “you will not see too many colleagues who have careers ahead of them” mourning the final tolls.
Pound minded not. “Bong-ogone-o, that’s so wrong-o,” he told reporters, in a sing-song fashion, before settling beside the lime trees. Later, he would melodramatically dab his eyes with a handkerchief as the moment neared, insisting the tears were real.
For some in Parliament Square, the event chimed with the final landing of Concorde at Heathrow in 2003, or the last voyage of QE2 from Portsmouth in 2008: crowds gathered en masse to bid farewell to an institution. Of course, Big Ben will chime again – as soon as Remembrance Sunday and New Year’s Eve, in fact – but its power is in its consistency. During the Second World War, as London was bombarded by the Luftwaffe, the clock face was darkened but the bell still tolled.
Yesterday, many present had come just a few steps from their workplaces in surrounding streets, where the hourly bongs and “Westminster Quarters” serve as an over-the-top office clock; some came to pay their respects from around the country; and a few had travelled half way across the world to witness a once-in-ageneration happening.
“We came straight here, after stepping off a plane from Melbourne at 7am,” Trevor Anderson said. He and his wife, Carolyn, are to spend four weeks touring Britain, but no afternoon would be more important than the first.
“For us in Australia, this is a symbol of London and of strength and stay in the face of adversity. We have nothing like it.”
In the build-up to the Great Bell’s silencing, some critics of the renovations’ length, including John Glen, the Heritage Minister, had argued Big Ben is “one of our key attractions for many people from overseas”. Yesterday, the presence of television news crews from Poland, China, New Zealand, Japan, the USA
‘For us in Australia, this is a symbol of London and of strength and stay in the face of adversity. We have nothing like it’
and Italy proved that so. Gathered beneath the statue of Winston Churchill, Trevor and Heather Weston had travelled into the city from Rochester so that their daughters, Katie, seven, and five-year-old Hannah, could look back at the significance of the day in the future.
“It’s a real where-were-you thing, I think. A bit of history for them to appreciate that symbol,” Trevor said. “Big Ben gives you a sense of place, hearing it on the news and whenever you’re in London. The girls will understand it better now, and you know what – we’ll probably be here in four years for the first new chimes too,” Heather added.
With the 14ft minute hand creeping towards noon, faces tilted up at the Elizabeth Tower. Already, the base of the structure is being consumed by scaffolding. At the top, meanwhile, the Ayrton Light, a lantern housed above Big Ben that’s lit to show Parliament in session, will not be switched on for the sessions for the first time in 70 years.
For George Major, the 79-year-old Pearly King of Peckham, the sound of Big Ben represents a London otherwise lost.
“It’s sad to see it go, like so much of the history of this city,” said Major, who was crowned on the Old Kent Road in 1958. “We used to be able to hear that bell from deep in the south, and I made sure to have all seven of my dustbin lids [kids] at St Thomas’ Hospital, over the river, so they could be born within the sound of Big Ben. I
‘I’m not quite sure why we applauded, but it felt right to do it. It feels eerie here now. It’s a special thing’
don’t understand why it has to happen.”
As the clock struck 12, all fell quiet. Hundreds of camera phones thrust skywards – a 21st century salute for a Victorian icon. The 12 chimes tolled, and then, gently, applause and cheers replaced the silence, before the bells of Westminster Abbey rang their own loud peal.
It was no time for tears, but instead a stoic nod. Afterwards, the masses parted and went their separate ways: some to work, some to the next tourist attraction. “I’m not quite sure why we applauded,” Heather Weston said, “but it felt right to do it. It feels eerie here now. It’s a special thing.”
Big Ben may have stopped, but the clock is ticking. The four years is on.