The BBC is reporting that clocksmith Ian Westworth says Parliament’s great clock has become a bit “temperamental,” explaining the error with the clock developed after a problem went unnoticed over the past weekend.
The Associated Press is reporting the iconic clock chimes every 15 minutes and lets loose with deep bongs every hour. The error in the timing of the bongs was first noticed by the BBC’s Radio 4, which broadcasts the bongs live at 6 p.m. The earlier chimes had caused interruptions to broadcasting, say Radio 4 staff.
Radio 4 PM presenter Eddie Mair said it wasn’t too unusual for the start of the chimes that ring in at 6 p.m., to vary. But on Monday, he told listeners, “of late Big Ben’s been even more erratic. The earliest the chimes start is usually 27 seconds to six [pm], but one day the other week it was seven seconds sooner.”
It wouldn’t do but to bring in the keeper of the clock to explain the error, and Steven Jaggs, the keeper of the great clock, and Ian Westworth, one of the three expert clocksmith’s who work on Big Ben were hauled in to explain to listeners the upset in the fabric of time, reports the Guardian.
“This is a mechanical clock,” Jaggs pointed out. “It’s not digital, it’s not electronic. It does take a lot of love and care.” He explained that it takes clocksmiths a lot of time to climb 334 steps three times a week to rewind the timepiece. And the mechanism can be affected by weather, atmospheric pressure, and old age.
Mr. Westworth told listeners the dedicated clocksmiths have been working on the problem. He pointed out that recalibration requires adding or removing weights from the pendulum, an intricate process. He added, “You can’t just wind the hands forward or wind the bell forward to make it catch up those five or six seconds that it was wrong.”
Westworth admitted he didn’t know what had caused the clock to speed up, but he did point out, “it does have a little fit every now and then. Imagine running your car for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for the last 156 years,” he added.
