Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
[sound of Big Ben striking]
Hello, my name is Michael McCann. I am the Palace Maintenance Manager and also Keeper
of the Great Clock. So, basically, I am responsible for the maintenance to Parliament of this
wonderful clock and the building.
So, this morning, I have been on Abingdon Green, doing interviews with ITV and BBC film
crews because, obviously, this clock is such an iconic structure in London, Great Britain
and, indeed, the world that it does generate a lot of media interest.
And what we are doing today is carrying out glazing repairs to this wonderful clock face here,
all four clock faces. This morning we have had a team of abseilers, abseiling down
the clock face, and they are inspecting for any damage to what we call the glazing strips,
putting them around about 60 metres above London, which is quite some height.
In fact, you can actually see one just here, it is a translucent piece of glass, and it
fits over the joints in the actual clock face. And if they, if they fall off, it allows the
water to get in behind the clock face and do some damage to the clock, so we inspect
it about every 5 years for any damage. Now we have actually found some missing pieces,
so they have now gone back to get our glazier, who will abseil down the clock face and repair
these wonderful bits of glass.
Tomorrow, the same glazier will be carrying out some specialist glass repairs to this
actual glass. Now this is a very special glass - it is very thin, it is very delicate and
it is called a 'pot opal' glass. We have virtually the entire world supply left, locked
away in our basement, very, very carefully, because it is no longer made. Now, unfortunately,
because it is so fragile, it does suffer from bird strikes and when we replace the glass,
it takes many, many years to bleach it. The sunlight actually bleaches it to this lovely
colour and, if you look up here, you can see a piece that was done about 3 to 4 years ago.
It is still a very, very different colour. It takes many years to get that beautiful
colour so, clearly, we do not like to replace too much glass.