LUNCH WITH BIG BEN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18861, 8 November 1924, Page 2 (Supplement)

LUNCH WITH BIG BEN.

A STEEPLEJACK'S MEALS.

MAKING TEA UP ALOFT. CLONING THE BIG FACE. The famous steeplojack, Mr. W. Larkins,' who lately .washed the face of Big Ben, .takes all. his i»eals up aloft. Swinging in the boatswain's cradle, which he is the first man to use for getting into close contact with Big Ben, Mr. Larkins recently made a hearty lunch from a wing of a chicken, and later brewed himself a cup* of tea, using a kettle which he had taken from home for the purpose. While he ate his meal his wife and daughter watched him from below. Mrs. Larkihs is very proud of her husband's airy achievements.

'■■■ "He is the first man who has ever cleaned Big Ben without stopping the hands," Mrs. Larkins told a Daily Clfronicle representative. By his method, he is able to cl&m one part at a time, and the cleaning is carefully timed, so as not to interfere with the hands. _ When he goes# up he stays there until just before darkness falls."

Buckets of Warm Water. While the steeplejack's wife was proudly explaining her husband's achievements, buckets, which looked no bigger than thimbles, were dangling in front of Big Ben's half-washed face. "Those are the buckets in which one of the assistants lowers w'arni water in a jug to my husband," she explained. "He is under contract not to use anything but plain wariy water to the clock. HiS method is to apply water with a whitewash brush, wash that section a little later with an ordinary chamois leather, and then to polish it well with a builder's swab." Big Ben is by no means the tallest proposition Mr. Larkins has tackled.' He has conducted three separate operations on the Nelson Statue in Trafalgar Square. He has washed Nelson, mended his arm, and strung him with electric lights for a Victory Loan celebration. "The chief difficulty my husband had to meet in dealing with Nelson," said Mrs. Larkins, "was that of getting over the sloping projection which finishes the column, just below Nelson's feet. This sloping projection was covered with a slimy deposit, and it was very difficult to get a footing."

A Difficult Feat. One of the'most difficult climbs Mr. Larkins ever undertook was when he undertook to clean a monument on Ben Bhragie, on the Puke of Sutherland's estate. His official climb was preceded by an unofficial one of several miles over the mountains before his objective was reached. And then the weather was so soverg that he and his assistant had to chop away ice from their ladders, step by step, every £ime they went up. *Mr. Larkins' eldest son, Mr. W. N. Larkins, has also a taste .for heights. He climbs for a different reason, however. He is an artist, and had a picture hung in the last Academy. Soma of his most successful etchings have had for their subjects scenes he has surveyed when accompanying his father, who was at work on the Shot Tower, near the river.