Good morning!
Welcome to issue 11, and apologies for the title of the last issue. I think some people found it slightly, er, distasteful to mention *whispers* faeces. In my defence the subject matter was literally about that, albeit a frozen one. But it seems I’m onto something - a new biography on Peter Freuchen (paywall) has been released.
For today’s issue I’m bringing back a previous feature: Why is it called that?
What do a roundabout and Charlie Brown have in common? It’s a question that lived inside my head for years whenever we drove around the Charlie Brown roundabout. Did the people of Woodford love Snoopy’s friend that much? I, dear reader, got to the bottom of it.
My thanks, as always, to Ferry Gouw for this letter’s illustrations.
Until next time!
Your pal,
Katie
WHY IS IT CALLED THAT?
Charlie Brown’s roundabout
Chinatown, Limehouse. The start of the 20th century, the air thick with opium, joss-sticks, and squalor. On the corner of Garford Street and the West India Dock Road stood the Railway Tavern pub, a five-storey pub filled with curios and oddities. Shark teeth and tribal weapons dangled from the ceiling, a pickled two-headed calf in the ground floor saloon, Ming vases in the private rooms upstairs. But what were they all doing there?
Charlie Brown, the landlord, was a former boxer with deep pockets. No one knew quite how he obtained his wealth but his mad collection grew. People travelled far to stare at the curios and for over 40 years he amassed a collection so large the pub - and Charlie - became famous.
When he died his body lay in state in the pub, surrounded by more than 140 wreaths (this, surely, would’ve pleased the obsessive collector in him). His oddities and objets d’art were divided between his children so that when Charlie Brown Jnr himself became a publican, taking over The Roundabout in Woodford, the collection once again adorned the walls of a pub.
Much like his father, Charlie Brown Jnr was a well-known local eccentric thanks to his love of watches. It wasn’t unusual to spot him walking around wearing sixteen of them clipped to his tie, in button holes, under his lapels, cufflinks, rings… He owned a big enough collection to evoke interest from a film crew, who marvelled that each watch actually worked (maybe watches didn’t work very well back in the 1940s).
In 1972 the Roundabout pub was demolished to make way for… a bigger roundabout. But despite the pub and the person being lost in time, the roundabout was forever cemented as Charlie Brown’s.
PS. Do you have a good story behind the name of something? You can reply to this email or leave a comment. I’ll share the best ones in the next Why is it called that?
SIDE NOTE
In 1945 the photographer Bill Brandt travelled around East End pubs, including the Railway Tavern. A snippet of Charlie Brown’s collection can be seen in the above photographs, Brown’s daughter, Ethel, now the landlady.
(Additional side note — I spent 16 years living one street over from Bill Brandt’s house which, as a photographer & a very big fan of Brandt’s work, was especially thrilling for me).
16 WATCHES
Do you own a lot of something? I know it was 1944, but I am still laughing that owning 16 watches was enough to attract a camera crew round
SHARING IS CARING, etc
If you enjoy this silly little newsletter and think someone else would, please feel free to forward it onto them because I am rubbish at promoting it. Ta!
Writing apologises instead of apologies in the very first line of this email has actually killed me 😮💨
What an interesting read, especially as I know the roundabout well. Who would have known this, thanks for sharing!