STEEPLEJACK'S FEATS.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18232, 17 November 1924, Page 13

STEEPLEJACK'S FEATS.

DANGLING IN FRONT OF BIG BEN. The famous stceplejadk, W - Lar .' kins, who lately washed tho face or Big Ben, takes all Ms meals up alott. Swinging ia tho boatswain's cradle, which ho i* tho first man to use lor getting into close contact with Big Bun, Mr Larkius recently jnado a hearty lunch from a wing of a cliifeken, and later brewed liimself a cup of tea, using a kettle which ho had taken homo for the purpose. . While ho ate hrf Seal his wUo and daughter patched him from below.. Mrs Larkins is vei> pSia of her husband's airy achieve to6 «He is'the first.man who has ejjr cleaned Big Bon ho^ hands," Mrs Larkins told a J« g Chronicle" representative. By bis j method ho is able to clean one part at, a time, and the cleaning is carefully timed, so as not to interfere withl the i hands, When he goes up ho stays tliere 1 until just before darkness falls. \,mlo tho steeplejack's wife was proudly explaining her Busband s achievements, buckets, which looked no bigger than thimbles, were dangling m front of Big Beh'a half-washed face"Those are the buckets in which one or the assistants lowers warm water in a jug to my husband," she explained. "He is under contract not to use anything but plain warm Water to the clock. Mis method is to apply water with a whitewash brush, waslr that section a little later with an ordinary chamois leather, and then to polish it well with a builders swab. Big Ben is by no means the tallest proposition Mr Larkins hag tackled. Ho 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 cclcr"Tho' chief difficulty my husßand had to meet in dealing with Nelson, said Mrs Larkins, "was that of .getting over the sloping projection which finishes the column, just below Nelsons feet Tin's sloping projection was covered i With a slimy deposit, and it was very [ difficult to get a footing." I One of the most difficult climbs Mr Larkins ever accomplished was when ho Undertook to clean a monument on Ben Bhragie, on the Duke of Sutherland s cotate His official climb was preceded W an" unofficial one of several < nuleS over ilio mountains before his objective was reached. And then tho weather was &> severs that he and his assistant had to choo away ico from their ladders, step bv step, every time they went up. Mr Larklus'B oldest son. Mr TV. A. Larkins, has also a taste for heights. He climbs for a different reason, however. He is an artist, and had a picture Turn*' in the last Academy. Some of his most successful etchings hale had for their subjects scenes' he has surveyed when accompanying his father, who was at work on the Shot Tower, near the i river.