Guest post by local historian Philip Grant
It’s five months since “Wembley Matters” reported that a bust of the Rolling Stones drummer, Charlie Watts, had been presented to Brent Council. There was speculation about where it should be put on display. Well now, and for at least the next few months, you can see it at Kingsbury Library (“click” here for details of the library).
Charlie grew up in a pre-fab home on the Pilgrims Way estate in southern Kingsbury, a fact he confirmed to me when I contacted him (at his rather different estate in Devon) when I was helping Brent Archives with its “Pre-fabs Project” in 2011.
Charlie went to school at Fryent Juniors in Church Lane, then on to the newly-opened Tylers Croft Boys Secondary School (now the Lower School for Kingsbury High School) on the north side of Roe Green Park. The school has a reminder of his time there, as a skilled student artist, who at 15 went on to progress his studies at Harrow Art School. A trip to London Zoo was the inspiration for Charlie’s painting on tiles, which still hangs on a wall in the school.
The small Brent Museum and Archives display at Kingsbury Library also includes photographs of the Rolling Stones when they performed a concert at the Kilburn State cinema in November 1963. So, if you want to pay your respects to the “Wembley Whammer” (Mick Jagger’s nickname for Charlie), or are just interested in this piece of our local musical history, Kingsbury Library is the place to visit!
Philip Grant.
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