Fleet Street

 

London, England: Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, Charles Dickens and Polly the Parrot
By Dr Khalid Siddiqui
Ohio

At one-time Fleet Street was famous for housing the offices of almost all British national newspapers. Now those offices have moved elsewhere, but Fleet Street is still dotted with numerous historical landmarks. One of them is Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. It is a pub in an alley off 145 Fleet Street on Wine Office Court in London. A Carmelite monastery was located here in the 13 th-century. In 1538, a pub was established at this place. The pub burned down in the Great Fire of 1666. It was rebuilt in 1667. Despite the presence of many pubs in the area, this pub always held a special attraction because of lack of natural lighting inside – there are no windows. It has a bar and a fairly large dining area. It is famous for beef-steak and kidney pudding. The pub is currently owned and operated by the Samuel Smith Brewery.

  The names of the 16 monarchs who have reigned during the pub’s existence are written on the right hand side of the door. The name of the 17 th monarch, Charles III, must have been added since I saw it in 2022.

Many important literary figures like Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Alfred Tennyson, Arthur Conan Doyle, R. L. Stevenson, P. G. Wodehouse, Samuel Johnson and W.B. Yeates were regular visitors here. Charles Dickens had a reserved chair in the dining area. It is still on display with a plaque in his name on the backrest of the chair.

Charles Dickens refers to this pub in A Tale of Two Cities. R. L. Stevenson mentions it in The Dynamiter. Wodehouse wrote about the pub by name in some of his books. Agatha Christie had Hercule Poirot dining in this pub with a client in The Million Dollar Bond Robbery. The founding meeting of the Medical Journalists’ Association took place here in 1967.

There are indications that the upper room was used as a brothel in the mid-eighteenth century.

I decided to take a photograph of Charles Dickens’ special chair. Once inside, we found an Oriental lady sitting in that chair blocking the plaque. We would have liked to, but couldn’t, tell her to move somewhere else. She understood our frustration, smiled, and voluntarily moved to the side. See the photographs. That lady is in the picture also.     

Polly the Parrot

An African Grey parrot named Polly was brought to the pub in 1895. Although it flew all over the pub, she preferred a perch in the bar where she sat most of the time. There she quickly learned many words used by the clients like ‘rats’, ‘Scotch’, ‘Puss’, ‘Hurry up with the pudding’, and all sorts of cuss words. She could imitate the popping of cork and pouring out of wine from the bottle. Journalists were careful not to use sensitive words when Polly was around. She also learned whatever was taught to her.

During WWI when the customers asked her, “What about Kaiser?” she would respond, “To hell with the Kaiser.” She amused the visitors with her expletive outburst. She soon attained international celebrity status. Any famous person visiting London made sure to stop at the pub to meet Polly. On September 15, 1921, Charlie Chaplain dropped by to meet Polly.

Twice she escaped from the pub – on August 15, 1905 and September 30, 1905. The news of her escape was immediately reported by The Hull Daily Mail, The London Daily News, The Yorkshire Evening Post and The Sporting News. A frantic search was launched and, on both occasions, she was found not far from the pub, and was brought back. The news of her return was also reported by newspapers.

On December 4, 1919, Princess Mary (daughter of King George V) visited the neighborhood to inaugurate the new City Women’s Club. After the ceremony, when she came out she saw the head waiter of the pub standing in front of a crowd with Polly on his wrist. Polly was entertaining the public with her foul language. The waiter was horrified when she saw the Princess stop upon seeing the parrot, come closer and stroke her head. He was much relieved when the parrot kept her mouth shut throughout the encounter with the princess.

The years of fluttering around a smoky pub was beginning to take its toll on the 42-year-old parrot. She developed pneumonia on August 10, 1926. The news was flashed all over the country. Medical advice was sought. Her room was kept warm and she was given a few drops of whiskey. Nothing helped and she passed away on October 30, 1926. Two hundred newspapers around the world wrote obituaries. Her death was announced on the radio also. Her body was sent away to the taxidermist to be stuffed. She was put on display in the nearby Anderton’s Hotel.

The club owner immediately got another African Grey Parrot – Polly II. It could never achieve the same level of fame. It wouldn’t talk much. It, however, mastered mimicking the whistling sound of the falling German bombs. It used to vocalize this sound randomly, and quite often, which would cause panic among the visitors who would run around looking for a bomb shelter. Polly II died on August 10, 1949.

After Polly II’s death the stuffed Polly I was brought back to the pub. There she sits nailed to the perch and placed on display in a glass case behind the bar – her favorite lodge. To me she appeared quite decent considering that she had been stuffed almost a century ago.