I am really pleased that at last local people, businesses and newspapers are talking about Charlie Chaplin so regularly and making plans to honour him much better in future.
Charlie Chaplin is among the most internationally famous people to have been born locally in the last 200 years and should be much better remembered and celebrated.
The starting point is East Street market and we definitely should have a statue for him here. We ought also to have a Charlie Chaplin birthplace museum or centre, and that could be in East Street too.
The Elephant, as the gateway to Walworth, could honour him just as it has honoured Michael Faraday in years gone past. That would mean that all the millions of people who travel through the Elephant might remember Charlie Chaplin too. And at the Elephant, if we save the Coronet, we could show Charlie Chaplin films on a regular basis to audiences from all over the world. So let’s bring visitors from all over Britain and the world to the Elephant and East Street to celebrate not just our history, but to boost our trade and business as well.
Simon Hughes
MP for Bermondsey and Old Southwark