Geraldine Brown

In the novel The Clocks, Geraldine Brown is a young girl of about nine or ten years of age who lives in a block of flats opposite 19 Wilbraham Crescent. Because she had fallen down and had broken her leg, she spent her time sitting by the window of her third floor flat studying what went on in the street below her. Her father had given her a good pair of opera glasses and she made detailed observations, recording everything in a notebook. She was familiar with the routines of all the houses on Wilbraham Crescent within her field of view.

Colin Lamb urgently wanted a fresh lead on the mysterious case of the dead man who was found in No. 19. While on Wilbraham Crescent, he noticed the flash of Geraldine's opera glasses and decided to come up to talk to her. Like the other witnesses, Geraldine did not see the mystery dead man enter No. 19. However, she did see a laundry van pull up shortly before the time the dead man was discovered. According to Geraldine, it was a new company, "Snowflake Laundry". Usually it was the "Southern Downs Laundry". A man got out of the van with a large laundry basket, much bigger than the usual one, and struggled with it to the back door.

Geraldine's full name is "Geraldine Mary Alexandra Brown" (her father, apparently did not approve of abbreviations, so people addressed her as Geraldine). Her father worked at the Cartinghaven Engineering Works at Beaverbridge some "fourteen and three-quarter miles" away. Being out most of the time, he left Geraldine in the care of their Norwegian cook/housekeeper/au pair Ingrid.