Charlie, 104, one of late British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's parrots in Reigate, Surrey. Churchill bought Charlie in 1937, giving him a boy's name despite the fact that the bird is a female.(AFP/Nicolas Asfouri)
Posted on 01/21/2004 9:06:49 AM PST by martin_fierro
Edited on 01/21/2004 9:31:28 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Churchill's daughter pours scorn on foul-mouthed parrot report
LONDON (AFP) - The daughter of Britain's wartime leader Winston Churchill denied that her father had ever owned a parrot which he had reportedly taught to swear about Hitler and the Nazis.
AFP Photo
Mary Soames said there had been a mix up between Charlie, the 104-year-old reportedly foul-mouthed female blue and gold Macaw, and Polly, an African Grey parrot which lived at Churchill's country home at Chartwell, south of London.
"My father never owned a Macaw or anything remotely resembling it," she told Britain's Press Association news agency.
"Before the war he did have an African Grey for about three years but that's quite, quite different from a Macaw -- it's smaller, or more compact, with a sort of red face," she said.
Charlie has been inundated with requests for interviews since reports in the British press that she uttered "**** Hitler! **** the Nazis!" with the distinct inflection of the British wartime leader, having been bought by Churchill in 1937, two years before the outbreak of World II.
Following Churchill's death in 1965, Charlie was sold to pet shop owner Peter Oram, who keeps her at a garden centre in Reigate, Surrey, the reports said.
Lady Soames said that Polly had been sold when the family left their home at Chartwell for London at the start of the war before her father became British prime minister in 1940.
She also ruled out that her father, a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953, could have taught the parrot to swear.
"The idea that he spent time in the war teaching it swear words is too tiresome for words," she commented.
However Sylvia Martin, who works at the garden centre where Charlie now lives, maintained the version of the story reported by her boss Peter Oram, currently on holiday.
"He was the one who went with his father-in-law to collect it. I know there's a lot of controversy about it," she said.
Charlie, 104, one of late British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's parrots in Reigate, Surrey. Churchill bought Charlie in 1937, giving him a boy's name despite the fact that the bird is a female.(AFP/Nicolas Asfouri)
LOL -- "HRRRRRAHHHK!!! Mary's an effin' jealous b*tch! HRRRRRAHHHK!!! Jealous b*tch!
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