“Never send to ask for whom the bell tolls. They toll for you.” But no offense to London poet John Donne’s line, if Big Ben’s bell was to ring Sunday night in tribute to the late Elizabeth II, it ultimately rang for no one.
The United Kingdom was invited to observe a new minute of silence at 8:00 p.m. to commune in memory of the sovereign who died on September 8. In London, it is the city’s most famous bell – overlooking the Palace of Westminster and the British Parliament from the top of the Elizabeth Tower – that would mark the beginning and the end.
If the Londoners did not stop being silent during the regulation sixty seconds and at the appointed time, Big Ben was also silent. The doorbell did not work due to a technical problem that the local authorities described as “minor” and that they assured had already been corrected.
An urgent investigation
A Parliament spokesman explained to Underground“We have urgently investigated and have identified a minor technical issue which has now been resolved. We will test the bell again later tonight.”
Perched atop 334 steps, weighing 13.7 tonnes, 1.20m high and 2.7m wide, the bell needs a 200kg hammer to sigh, according to TF1 stats.
Big Ben still has a role to play
The national mourning for the Queen of England is also the first big opportunity for Londoners to reconnect with Big Ben, after five years of renovation work that deprived them of their time slot.
“We are sure that there will be no problem with the ringing tomorrow during the procession during the state funerals,” said the parliamentary spokesman. Indeed, this Monday, Big Ben must ring 96 times – with an interval of one minute between each of its chimes – when the royal coffin leaves Westminster Abbey after mass. His booming voice will be muffled by a silencer.
Source: BFM TV
