Big Ben and no more bongs for four years.

Big Ben and no more bongs for four years.

You've got to be joking. It can't be happening. This is an outrage, a national disgrace. How could they after all these years, decades and the best part of over a century? Surely it must have occurred to somebody beforehand that Big Ben was showing signs of age.  It's a glaring oversight that had to be rectified sooner or later but today Big Ben, Britain's finest clock, has been silenced for a major overhaul and radical repair work. Yes, no longer will the world be able to hear those evocative bings and bongs, the soundscape that has come to define London for as long as anybody can remember.

So why now the reasonable question should be? Why has it taken Westminster so long, so inordinately long to correct, refurbish and replace those wonderful old chimes? The answer may never be told but after so many years of internal neglect, rustiness and perhaps a touch of complacency Big Ben is finally getting its well deserved brush up, a thorough renovation and some new mechanisms to keep it going well until the future without the fear that it may just stop again and never bong again.

Anyway it was encouraging to see that the scaffolding has now gone up and dear old Ben will be getting a new lease of life. For as long as any of us can remember the great clock that has stood so steadfastly next to the House of Commons will now face years of extensive labour on its vital components and tourists from around the world will have to be bitterly disappointed. Although only a temporary measure, four years without the sound of Big Ben chimes will probably seem like a lifetime for many of us. Still it'll be worth the wait and besides we can still look forward to New Year's Eve because those familiar bells will resound quite emphatically for our delectation.

But this is one of the bleakest days in London. No longer will we able to thrill to that hollow, clanging sound that seemed to echo around Westminster rather like some momentous announcement from the heart of the capital city. On the hour, quarter of an hour and the half hour, this constant reminder of Old Father Time will no longer form that instantly identifiable sound, the sound that could almost be heard in Scotland because we all know that sound travels.

For now though Big Ben has become an empty, hollow time- piece, the steady march of time no more than a simple clock face with none of that statesmanship or ceremony that most of us have come to love and look up to, quite literally at times. To those who were introduced to Big Ben at a very early age, it almost seems as if a member of London's closest family has been sent on a rather long sabbatical and told that one day they'll be re-united in better health.

Still we'll miss you Big Ben. None of us will ever forget your classical notes, those rousing statements of intent, the solemn finality of the mid-night or mid-day hour, the gravity of it all on the saddest occasions and that yearly famous 11.00 ring on Remembrance morning in November. Sadly though we tend to remember the more unfortunate occasions rather than the hip hip hooray events when Big Ben should signify celebration. That will thankfully be preserved on New Year's Eve but it really seems desperately unfair for those traditionalists who somehow expect it to be there all the time.

So it is that we bid a fond farewell to the Big Bong bell just for a while anyway. I can still remember being totally awe struck by the sheer size of Big Ben as a kid and the position it has occupied for so long. There is a stability and permanence about the clock that never fails to enchant the curious by stander. In a world so volatile and violent it's comforting to know that a big old clock can remain exactly where it is without feeling threatened by bombs, grenades and those menacing missiles that North Korea keep troubling us with.

I think I speak on behalf of all Londoners when I say that the Big Ben bong will be sorely missed and almost longed for again. Absence of course makes the heart grow fonder and if there can be any consolation in this difficult time for Londoners then maybe we can hark back to those News at Ten days when TV gave us its nightly signing off to a public with an insatiable hunger for news. Four years is an unreasonable length of time but time will fly. Of that there can be no doubt.