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This song played a memorable part in my teenage years, especially for one member of the gang of lads I was part of on Windybank Estate; none more than a young man called Charlie Walker. Charlie was an okay mate and always came out drinking, dancing and fighting with the gang in our teenage years but could sometimes be bossy.
It was the custom then to give each other ‘nicknames’, not to be harmful but to keep our conversations more secretive to the listening ears of nosy parents. Should our parents overhear us talking about some mate having done this or that, they wouldn’t have the slightest inkling who we were talking about.
Most of the lads had been given nicknames that other mates called us by, and we even ascribed current pop songs to our friends because of some characteristic or prominent trait. Because I never went out with a girl more than twice as a rule before losing interest and finding another girlfriend, my ascribed song was ‘The Wanderer’.
When the song 'Charlie Brown' was released in 1959, we all decided to give 'Charlie Walker' the nickname of 'Charlie Brown'. It was a name that stuck like glue. Every time Charlie Walker was referred to thereafter, he’d be called ‘Charlie Brown’. The girlfriend he went on to marry used to refer to him as ‘Charlie Brown’ and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if the couple got married under that name and Christened their children with the surname of ‘Brown’!
Love and peace Bill xxx