THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1955.
CLOSE-UP ON BIG BEN
The personality with the best-known face in the world will lose his voice next year. Big Ben is to be overhauled, Frank Daniels climbed to the top for this personal interview...
B
J
FORE Big Ben loses his voice next year I decided to, have n personal Not that anything is wrong interview with the best-known face in the world. with Big Ben, whose accuracy could hardly be improved on today. The scaffolding, which reaches to the very top of the tower, for the first time in On the night of the blitz when the Commons
it history, is to repair war damage.
was destroyed Big Ben was shaken but remained ticking.
The belfry above was hit, and loft standing on, three legs, and the glass was Now 1down out of the dials, yet the clock was only out by one and a half seconds. the tower will be closed for the next 18 months for repairs, and Big Ben itself will come to a stop for several months for a thorough overhaul.
"Don't charge up the stairs," advised the man as he unlocked the door at the fool of the tower, and, by the time I had panted past the 336th step I saw what he meant.
By now I was in what looked like the engine-room of a small ship. I shouted above the noise to the man from Dents, the firm which first constructed the clock and which sends someone three times a week to wind it. Somehow I have never Its authority is so un- thought of Big Ben being wound up, just like any watch, questionable that I imagined it worked by automatic control. In fact, until the introduction of electrical winding it took two men five hours a time to wind the cluck by hand.
Hysterical windmill
and this is what he saw
THIS
Page
THIS FARCE THEY CALL AMNESTY
From: RUSSELL SPURR
Was
Singapore. A rubber inpper was actually elist and injured - by -terrorisfa
по war
THER Kelapa Sawit. (on miller from
ton miles from the village, the
suggests the The National Servicemen Johore gangs do not intend to were watching their first give up."
film show. The Red Cross It was almost dark when I nuree from Australin was reached Kelapa Sawit... rolaxing by radio. The polico successivo checkposts officer wore slippers.
He ant listening not
con-
stantly cplayed my car, along the winding road from Singa- for pore,
alarm calls but for the' · Bearded· Sikhs · and young crying. cf his 14 days old Malays in rumpled jungle green daughter.
peared in to see if I was carry- ing contraband food.
The entire strength of the
The worst village in Malaya was strangely quiet. security forces, in Malaya is
Sentries still patrolled the rather than shooting the ter... protective boundary wire. rorists.
now concentrated on starving
Blue green guard lamps The village guard opened the lit them plodding through wire gate. He let me in without question. Difficulties only being long wet grass. But the when you try get out,
terror was off. Temporarily at least.
The wait-and-sce cam- paign was on.
part
NOTORIOUS
NO COMMENTS
what to do next,” he told me,
I drove into a sanall inner Then, in 1913, a motorised winding gear was installed by Dents and it now.
compound, acrosse with ball- takes 10 minutes. The din ceased, and only a masterful tick-tock interrupted our
ball bladder stuffed with cotton The bell was more difficult. The accuracy of Big Ben, a
frogs, where a British polico wool to prevent vibration, was The largest ever cast in England, daily average of four-tenths of conversation until suddenly a winged instrument spun round like an hysterical wind-
Kelapa Sawit is the worst in lieutenant, "Mat" Stovens of mill, apparently followed by a burst of machine-gun fire, and the quarter struck first installed in 1924. Pigeons, 18 tons, was brought to London & second's error, has occasionally costrinated village in the worst Liverpool, was pottering about
kept piercing the rubber to get by water and then pulled across been marred. When Victoria's terrorised
of Malaya. his bungalow. "Reckon we will deafening above is.
the wool for their nests and Westminster Bridge, not without consort, Prince Albert, lay dying, Author les reckon 99 percent have a bit of quiet, while the today Lwo microphones
works out are anxiety, by 1d horses. It was it tolled mysteriously a hundred of its 2,700 Chinese inhabitants. Red high command
then placed in a felt-lined box.
strung up in the Palace times without stopping; and support the Rees, Yard where it promptly cracked when Gladstone introduced, or The bell has not always after being..teated.
tried to, Irish Home Rule, it sounded In the 1814-18 war i
refused to strike at all, a point when Zeppelin. It was recast and the Illustrat- which the opposition was quick was silenced
imminent. On od London News reported that to size on. raids were Armistis Day, 1940, the Big Ben the new tone was "far superior," allent minute was started and It was again brought by 10 the broadcast chimes rang out pracs and greeted by a curious to the world, often with the crowd. Hoth the bell and the noise of sirens and gunfire clapper were lighter and sur-
vived lengthy testing so it was Guly hoisted to the top.
THIS IS THE POINT DANIELS REACHED
The scene now switched to the climax of a Carol Reed thriller, myself playing Orson Welles, scrambling up iron spiral stairenses, past the ginnt bell, up endless rickety ladders, until at last I was trapped on the utmost peak which swayed slightly in the wind. My film cue, I suppose, was to throw myself off. Instead, I looked down nervously, clutching the scaffolding with the nimest possible group.
The ornamental top is an imposing decora tion of gilt and iron and the view which few can have seen before me,, is extraordinary. Most remarkable is the stretch of woodland that apparently stretches endlessly across London.
the background,
in
The legend
Frozen hands
has
A
Miss Francas Taylor of Syd- ney, Australia, was in' a little Red Cross bungalow.. Sho rung The Kulst district of Johore the clinic, quite the most popu- is notorious for terrorist at- ler non-Communist institution
"Wish tacks.
soma- Somewhere umong its in the village.
thing would come and oll jubber Jungle and
of the am- palms turk the Malayan Com- nesty," she sighed.
A company of the Queen's munists' most effective killers.
Royal Regiment, which guards More
recently,
#now
These men have now beca Kelapa Sawit, were clustered frozen the minute hands, a loose tarpaulin got in the
offered extraordinarlly generous round on way, a
army cinematograph workman leant a ladder against surrender terms by the newly van. They sat smoking conten one of the hands, which came to elected government of Malaya, tedly in the warm trople night
have teen
told that while the projector ground out a stop, and another
workman They
held
Title: against the main feature." hammer behind which nothing will be
them if they hurry to give Killer At Large. The film was Everything was now sel, but to
in
works tho
and themselves up.
not new. Still, no one grumbled of the crowds stopped the clock for 12 hours.
It was the first the amusement
they had the clock defused to go. Denison On August 12, 1949, so many
Four surrender areas
haye able to see. "Jungle bashine seiled on the hands claimed that the hands designed starlings
bern marked out
to recelva was called off; this was heaven. by the architect werd too heavy, that they lost us five minutes, them round Kepala Sawit, and he was right. The new ones and in July this year a cablo
and the noved,
Thousands giant bell broke and the bell chimed 10 at
of leaflets have A terrific controversy accom-
becn showered over the jungle A face stared at me in surprise from Bpanied the birth of Big Ben. Loomed on May 31, 1859. It had four o'clock.
taken Liten
Troops helicopter flying towards the landing stuge et fufter Great Tom
years, and the
have been But such incidents only add to treetops. was moved husel Waterloo.
A reminder of the flying bomb which there was no clock at Westmin- cost was £22,000. Trouble was his perality, fur, after an, that cailed in from offensive patrols,
me not yet over.
checks have came so close that a workman claimed he could ster for more than 100 years,
A surface crack is what Big Ben is much more though security have thrown his cap on it as it charged by. theus in 1834, after the fire which appeared, and after arguments a personality than a monument been tightened.
But no terrorists have yet surrendered Dround Kelapa Sawit,
an
This is formed by St James's Park, Greet, Park, Buckingham Palace Gardens, Hyde Park and Holland Park. From above one has impression or sweep of green countryside. Scotland Yard looks dingy in the extreme and due to a concealed sween of the Thames, the Tower of London is quite in the wrong place.
Д
· A face stared
Only in the period of Dying bombs did the BBC use record- ings for reasons of security. It is not surprising that Big Ben became a symbol of London's indestructibility and that large crowds cheered along the banks of the Thames when the lights of the clock were put on again In 1945.
chimed in 1859but there has been a clock at stroyed the old Palace of West- sung tive years, while the er mere machine,
Big Ben is comparatively now it first
a new clock tower was ack was silent it was decided the bell slightly and urected. The Astronomer Royal to turn Westminster since 1288, known as Great Tom. sct requirements, including install
a sull lighter dinner clapper. There is the story of a sentry arrested at Windsor accuracy within one second, that When the ball rang out again it Castle at the end of the 17th century for sleeping most clockmakers thought im on duty. He defended himself, saying he had heard Great Tom strike 13 at midnight. This possible for a clock exposed to proved to be true and the soldier was acquitted.
In 1707, when the tower was pulled down, Christopher Wren asked for the bell for St Paul's, where, after being recast, it was duly hang. Now, when Big Ben goes silent next year, the volce of Great Tom will deputise on the BBC.
"At last I was trapped on the utmost peak, which
swayed slightly in the wind
wind and ruin.
Largest ever.
was gruffer than before, and has remained like that to this day, for nothing more has had to be clone to either the big bell or the four-quarters.
The legend has it that at the debate in the Commons, regard- ing the name to be given to the However, a brilliant, inventive be, the First Commissioner of athematician called Denison Works, an extremely large man designed one, without payment, called Sir Benjamin Hall, gave und the was constructed by E. J. a particularly long oration. Dent and his stepson, of the "Let's call it Big Ben, and have came firm which looks after it done with it, someone shouted.
And so it was.
Meanwhile, the chimes of Big Ben are broadcast direct. A microphone, contained in a foot today.
{
(COPYRIGHT).
The people very much con--- cerned made no comment. The their thatched roof huts. They Chineze villagers stayed in have bets offered £70 a head
for leading in a surrendered terrorist,
there
No one is surprised have been no takers.
(COPYRIGHT)
Quality
need not be expensive
ATOM AND
"P
London. EOPLE used to think I was crazy - when I started all said Mrs Muriel Howorth. "All this" wILS the Institute of Atomic Information for the Layman, which she founded in 1948
this,"
EVE IN LONDON
Mrs. Howorth has a mission
to teach simple atomics to
women and children.
is followed by
reached the.
upper-crust.
level and a new fashion started.
Atomic cocktail parties are now all the rage and nuclear physics provide
quite the amartest conversa- tion topic at dinners in
and has been running ever luncheons in Park Lane. A was in plasticine, made by Mayfair. since with truc missionary ten-minute educational film her husband. zenl.
This does not mean to say Д brains
Ho is a retired Army For this spritely middle- trust.
major who takes a keen that society women are any aged civil servant has But for the women who interest in his wife's hobby cleverer than housewives.
23
mission: to proclaim the feel too shy to ask questions and edits the magazine
of atomic peaceful uses energy and to teach the in front of learned scientists, Atomic Digest for the in-
stitute. basic facts of atomic science there is the Ladies' Atomic to ordinary people-to the Energy Club which meets Mra Howorth herself has layman, in fact.
at Londonderry House. The spent night after night ladies—and this is the cor- reading books about ato Or rather, to the lay-
Most of Mrs Ho- rect term, for the register mics. "Women everywhere worth's 250 members (at is studded with peeresses- $59. a year) are women, are taught simple atomics. though "the men love to "No prior knowledge of come too, especially the physics or chemistry need- diplomats.
ed," Mrs Howorth assured
woman.
me.
By ANNA LANDAU
At the end of a course must be taught not to
Atomic
MRS, HOWORTH~~ I am a great
feminist Mrs Howorth's favourite
What with working at story is of the titled woman her job, running her flat and who gushed after a lecture: looking after her husband, "It was wonderful! Do come, who has been ill for two! to lunch tomorrow and tell years, Mrs Howorth finds me what it was all about." she has little time left to play the piano or visit her Despite the horn-rimmed doctor son. reading-glasses Mrs Howorth. She is also busy with her is no blue-stocking. Before publications. Apart from writing the war she acted in films pamphlets dealing with atomic Terminology, a book about Pro- "always the vampish parts" ́fessor Soddy, Nobel prize-win -but she became more in-, ning scientist, she has brought tercated, in the technical out a story for children called
Atom
In Wonderland. It is easy side of the cinema. During enough to understand (techni- the war she was employed calities when they are explained
[ in this way; at the Royal Aircraft Estab If
lishment at Farnborough on high-speed filming.
be
there is a one-hour test. frightened. by scientific They come to the ban- The Elementary qucts four times a year. The Examination for the Lay- terms," she said. “And I next one is scheduled for man. Two of the successful am a great feminist, October. Place? The House candidates are Lady Helen women ask me how to con- of Commons. Ambassadors Nutting and Lady Codling, struct the perfect kitchen I'
Now a Fellow of the Royal In his cailley under, the of countries who have They are now ready to in- tell them to put a bookcase
Society of Arts, Fellow of ground Atom was very Happy bought nuclear reactors at struct the less advanced. In it."
the Physical Society and because he had lots of friends The Daddies were called the recent Genova confer.
Although Mrs Howorth's also of the Royal Empire Mr Proton, and the ence will be there to speak. To help her pupils, Mrs The menu? Mra Howorth la Howorth has charts and first classes were for house- Society (she is a Licentiate were called Mrs Neutron, and hoping to serve potatoes models. One of the charta wives, she complains that of the Royal Academy of all the children were called sterilised by radiation in the showed me illustrated "they did not spread their Music, too, for good men Electron 1962 and now as fresh as the structure of uranium knowledge beyond their own sure), she has a full-time autumn will be the and was made of green four walls." But news of her fob doing research work for publication of her latest book. sequins stuck on cardboard. lectures to women's in the Government. The ato. It is for women and you The diplomats flock too to A model showing the com- stitutes and business wo mic salon" is a completely, and Eve.
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