THE CHIMES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27385, 10 May 1950, Page 6

THE CHIMES

‘"'For nearly seventy years Dunedin’s Town Hall clock has chimed away ‘ the quarters and the hours. Without -•it the city would be something less than it is, as London-would be without Big Ben. Its chime is the most characteristic voice of Dunedin and yet it has required the questionings of an observant visitor .to inform most of the citizens that what it sounds is not . the celebrated West-

minster chime but a distinctive variant of it composed locally and ,*used, so far as is known, nowhere " else. It is not unusual for town clocks to have their own peculiar chimes—apart, that is, from the peculiarities of cracked or badly tuned bells. “Well-known airs can be heard, sometimes felicitously, from the clock, towers of old towns. Local associations provide the explanation for most of these divergencies from the norm. It was perhaps some quirk of nationalist individualism that prompted Dunedin to be different in its own way.

• If so, it is a matter of thanksgiving that nationalism did not compel the • "choice of a few bars of such a ditty as “The Blue Bells' of Scotland.” ;These tunes are well enough, but •"few of them would not become intolerable under, the regular iteration of a town chime. Although the distinctive quality of the local chime is ignored by those who hear it most often, it must be reckoned a composition of merit for it has not become an irritation. And yet, there are those who would contend that the chiming clock of the Town Hall is a • nuisance—but only because it

" chimes, not because of ' what it ..‘chimes. For the first fifty years it served the community almost without being noticed except on the rare . occasions when it broke down. Then the Town Hall accreted to itself halls as well as council offices and the clock gained a notoriety which almost every winter has brought it - into the news. Its clangour is no respecter of the temperament or the pianissimo of vocalist and virtuoso. So the bells are now occasionally - 'silenced, by request. It may be dis- •- puted whether the concession is properly granted. If it so happened that Big Ben in Westminster disturbed the orators below, it would be a bold member who would request that the clock and not himself should hold tongue. Certainly concert artists have usually more to say, and in a manner more worth listening to, than members of Parliament, but a parallel may be indicated to suggest that arbitrary interference with the chimes, which belong to the -city and not only to concert-goers, should not go unquestioned. There - -is a downright, impressive honesty ' about its interruptions which deserves a greater tolerance than is • extended to the poltergeist which •. . inhabits the recesses of the Concert Chamber.