Stephen Birnbaum's nickname for London Pensioners
 

Stephen Birnbaum was my teacher of things travel, especially to Europe - and even more especially to London. Like many others, I was deeply saddened to hear of his passing. Many have tried to emulate his work, but, at least to my mind, no one comes close.

Unfortunately, I have long since thrown away my UK guide and I am trying to recall a term Stephen used - the nickname for pensioners who reside at the Royal Hospital, Cheslea. The term I seek is NOT Peelers.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Thank you.

Had never hear of him, he died in 1991 - do you think his books are still relevant? Would you recommend reading them still?

Growing up in the UK I only ever heard them referred to as "Chelsea Pensioners". This term used to be used as a nickname for Chelsea football club as they are located close to the Royal hospital, and used to play like pensioners.

There's a huge amount of publicity - much of it mildly treacly - around the Chelsea Pensioners. Practically every PR person short of an idea for a product aimed at the elderly resorts to getting a photo-op of it with a Chelsea Pensioner sooner or later.

Between Remembrance Saturday and Nov 11, the media invariably is stuffed with references to them.

But I've never heard them called anything but the Chelsea Pensioners. Very rarely, a subeditor short of space might say "the Pensioners", though that IS the common nickname for Chelsea FC, so it rarely gets through to print.

Was Birnbaum (or the poster's memory) confusing this with the regular newspaper cliche of calling surviving WW1 combatants "the Old Contemptibles" (a typically British recasting of the dismissive remarks Kaiser Wilhelm II made about the British regiments he was happy to strut around as colonel in chief of as long as the toy soldier uniform he got for it matched his delusions)?

Sadly, there are no more surviving British WW1 combatants, so the phrase has almost disappeared. But it'll doubtless stage a comeback as the WW1 centenary industry clicks into operation from summer next year.

I'm UK too, and I've never heard of a nickname for them.

You weren't getting confused with the Tower of London warders being nicknamed 'beefeaters', were you? (or Birnbaum).

P.S. Peelers was the nickname for the early policeforce set up by Robert Peel, so nothing to do with pensioners of any type.

The navy also used to have its official pensioners - the Greenwich pensioners. Their nickname was the 'grey geese'.

Could it be the, 'men in scarlet'.

I also grew up in London and never heard of any sobriquet for the Chelsea Pensioners.

I do know that many church pensioners are called Bedesmen.

See Anthony Trollope's The Warden for further details.

Thin, Trollope Fan

I agree w/ the others. I'm pretty sure there isn't a 'nickname' for the Chelsea Pensioners - I've never heard them addressed as anything else . . .

UK and US - divided by a common language: In the US a peeler is a stripper.

Wow...Stephen Birnbaum...Have not heard that name in decades.

When I traveled to Europe back in 1984 for the first time as an adult, his was the main book I used to come up with an itinerary through France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It worked well, too.

(((H))

Sorry, I have lived in the USA since 1979 and I have NEVER heard a stripper referred to as a peeler.


Thin

>>In the US a peeler is a stripper.<<

In <i>what</i> part of the country would that be? Never ever heard anything like that.

Peeler = stripper - well, maybe you just don't get around much any more? (Jess kidding...). It's definitely not an invention of mine, it's corroborated by a great many dictionary entries, as you will see when you google the term "peeler nickname for stripper" or such.

During my 29 years in the UK I never heard a policeman referred to as a "Peeler". I suspect its use died out shortly after Sir Robert, replaced by much more down to earth nicknames.

I seem to have a vague memory that "peeler" has been used to mean a policeman in Ireland more recently than in England.

But if we're wandering that far off topic, are we all agreed at least that peelers don't wear pasties?

I wonder if he was talking about the Pearly Kings and Queens - which I know are nothing to do with Chelsea Pensioners! Pearly and Peeler are vaguely similar.

Pearly Queen is 'safe' to google by the way!

Since no one seems to have the answer mtaback, why not just buy a new guide and look it up? You can get one for $5 used.

http://www.abebooks.com/Birnbaums-Lo.../7885728539/bd

Re a stripper being a peeler, there is no doubt that is a synonym for a stripper. Whether it is regional or simply has gone out of fashion I don't know but I can recall the term being used a few decades ago quite commonly.

Common enough that as michelhuebeli notes, it is in the dictionaries as such.

https://www.google.ca/#q=origin+peel...iptease+artist

Yep, I think getting your hands on an old Birnbaum book is the only way to go on this one. It appears that this nickname was indeed his and not something in even slightly general usage.

I suspect the most likely answer is as given by flanner right at the outset.

It might not, in the 60s and 70s, have been altogether mistaken to confuse "Old Contemptibles" and Chelsea Pensioners.

Chelsea Pensioners are full-time inmates of the Royal Hospital: they have to be ex-servicepeople, there are only a few dozen of them and they're typically way beyond retirement age. Criteria for selection have changed over the years, but they've typically had to have had substantial careers as volunteer servicepeople.

"Old Contemptibles" was the nickname assumed by UK servicemen in WW1: almost always by volunteers who'd joined before conscription was introduced in 1916. The phrase was a reaction to the Kaiser's alleged dismissal of them as "a contemptible little army", in contrast with his conscripted millions: checking for this post, I find there's no evidence the Kaiser ever did actually say or write that. But the belief he did is as widespread as the American delusion the Boston Tea Party was a protest against import duty, and as close to being a crucial plank of national identity.

So given that few become Chelsea Pensioners before the're 70, virtually all of them from 1950 till the 1980s will probably have been ex-WW1 volunteers. The two terms were never confused in English - but it's very likely that for most of Birnbaum's writing career, virtually all Chelsea Pensioners were also Old Contemptibles.

It's even pretty likely that anyone chatting to a Pensioner would have heard him (in Birnbaum's day they were all he's) mutter something like "nah: there aren't many of us Old Contemptibles left these says"

It wouldn't have occurred to anyone to explain the two terms referred to quite different things. 30 years ago, everyone in England understood both terms fully.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpainti...brigade-179647
I think Flanner is right, but this painting is entitled "The boys of the old brigade". It's also the march they use on occasions like the annual remembrance service

I think a very nice euphemism for stripper is--

Erection Hostess!


So much more imaginative and "artsy" than the pedestrian "peeler."

Thin, who has known a few ecdysiasts

"The Boys of the Old Brigade" - sung by Peter Dawson.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vw98KKdPt4

Peter Dawson was one my father's favourite singers in the 1930s, so we grew up listening to his records.

Conjecture tells the OP nothing.

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/me...et/id400590494

As you can see from that, Men In Scarlet would be another possibility. It's a simple and logical name to imagine people (including Birnbaum) might have referred to them by.

Remember, Birnbaum was an American writer visiting the UK. His terminology would be that of a tourist, not a native. So one could argue that he like many tourists would be more likely to say, 'who are those men in the red jackets?' That is in fact how many tourists refer to them.

A case could be made for several nicknames. The only way to know is to look in one of Birnbaum's old guidebooks and see what he actually wrote.

I have Birnbaum's "Great Britain 1900". I'll try to look it up today - if I don't doze off while doing so.

Birnbaum is the only "old" guide books I keep (I have several of his). He is quite good, and also opinionated - which is something I like in a guide book.

Stu Dudley

Some 15-20 years ago, when I still regularly travelled to away matches, Chelsea pensioners were regular attendees at football matches featuring Portsmouth.

They were generally very well respected by fans of either side - except on one occassion when some spotty oik walked behind a group of three pensioners abusing them for supporting Chelsea - and seemed to stupid to realise that the name wasn't an affiliation to Chelsea FC.

The London chapter in the "Great Britain" book was very short. No mention of Chelsea "anything".

Stu Dudley

The mystery continues. ;-)

I now find myself wanting to know the answer. Mtaback is going to have a lot to answer for if he doesn't come back with the answer.