TO HEAR ONCE MORE...
I can attest to the fact from personal experience, one does not have to be an Englishman to find assurance in the b-o-o-ing of “Big Ben.”
There are certain things of special value to each of us regardless of where we live, but nothing overlaps national bounds as does the venerable old clock and the well-named bell in the tower of the Houses of Parliament in London.
There is a certain charm in seeing pictures of the Eiffel Tower and think of Paris, the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen harbor, the colorful splendor of St. Sophia's at Agra, the canals and bridges of ancient Venice or the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco or the impressive arch at St. Louis. There many more special monuments, of course, in various parts of the world but few compare to the universal tone of Big Ben's song. There is a sound of confident courage for many people around the world who have heard the sound of Big Ben and gained strength from having done so it times of peril.
Even before World War II started, when Hitler was on the rampage in Europe and people where being crushed by tyranny in Soviet Russia, the sound of Big Ben Ben prefacing the News from London was a memorable radio signature which inspired and encouraged thousands of people of many nations. The very sound, ponderous and proud, was a hallmark of Truth for all who faced the loss of personal freedom. Seldom has such a sound meant so much to so many people of such diverse backgrounds and cultures.
In those days when we turned short wave radio dials to seek out the latest news, when we came to that sound of Big Ben ringing forth over the Thames we often said to ourselves and others: ”Now, we will hear the Truth!” Most of the broadcast news was suspect in those days - but and dried propaganda in its various, insidious forms, but one felt instinctively, that the new from London under the strong pulse of that tremendous thirteen-ton-plus bell would be honest and forthright. We respected the news from London, even though we realized it could not be complete - curbed and clipped as it had to be by censorship demands of wartime.
No doubt, much it all sounds inadequate to many of us today Our communications systems have advanced and improved it so many ways since the days of Hitler, Stalin, Il Duce and others of like debasement. Ours is, even if all of us cannot accept the idea, a much better world than the one we knew in those years. I still find myself thinking of the good qualities of the life we worked to keep alive and secure during the years of war and the hectic years leading up to the conflict and with its aftermath as well.
If I had to name a sound symbol of security for those years, I would nominate “Big Ben.”
A.L.M. August 26, 2003 [c513wds]
