A century ago, the iconic sound of the famous London clock Big Ben was first broadcast live by the BBC radio station as part of the New Year program, France-Presse and Agerpres reported.

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On December 31, 1923, just before midnight, BBC engineer AG Dryland took a microphone to the roof outside the British Parliament to record the sound of Big Ben as the year 1924 passed.

Since then, the ticking of the clock has been broadcast live. The symbolic sound will be played at midnight from Sunday to Monday on Radio 4, the BBC’s radio station.

The grave, deep sound of the clock is broadcast twice a day on Radio 4, at 6pm and midnight, and at 10pm on Sundays.

While New Year’s Eve is in full swing in London, watchmaker Andrew Strangeway will be at the top of the 96-meter Elizabeth Tower, home to Big Ben and four other bells.

Along with two other watchmakers, Strangeway, 37, will perform a last-minute check on the watch to ensure it is running “correctly to the split second”.

“I think there’s little chance it won’t work out,” he told AFP. “Our main concern at events like New Year’s is whether (the clap) is going to go off and whether it’s going to be on time.”

The engineer says that he is very happy to be “in the immediate vicinity of the bells (…) when all mankind will be looking at this clock as we enter the new year.”

Big Ben “still works!”

Big Ben sits atop the Elizabeth Tower, renamed the Clock Tower in 2012 in honor of Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee, a monument built in the 1840s.

The bell weighs almost 14 tons.

Before the renovation, watchmakers checked the accuracy of the watch using mobile phones. The watch is currently GPS-calibrated thanks to the National Physical Laboratory.

However, the method of setting time has remained very traditional: old coins are used to add or subtract a weight acting on the clock’s giant springs, thus adding or subtracting a second.

“It’s a fantastic job,” Strangeway enthused. Every time he walks around London, he can’t help but look at Big Ben and congratulate himself because “look, it’s still working.”