Churchill's Charlie (Photo: London Daily Mirror)
Posted on 01/19/2004 10:24:02 PM PST by JohnHuang2
Churchill's foul-mouth parrot alive at 104
Charlie known for shocking leaders with anti-Hitler expletives
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
The foul-mouthed parrot at Winston Churchill's side during Britain's darkest hour of World War II is still alive and cursing Adolf Hitler.
Churchill's Charlie (Photo: London Daily Mirror) |
At 104-years-old, Charlie can still be coaxed to repeat favorite sayings, such as "[expletive] Hitler" and "[expletive] the Nazis," London's Daily Mirror reports.
The blue and gold macaw actually is a female, but was given a boy's name by the British prime minister when he bought the bird in 1937.
"Many an admiral or peer of the realm was shocked by the tirade from the bird's cage during crisis meetings with the PM," the London paper said.
James Humes, an expert on the late prime minister, told the Mirror the bird is a piece of living history.
"Churchill may no longer be with us but that spirit and those words of defiance and resolve continue," Humes said.
Charlie was purchased by a pet shop owner, Peter Oram, when Churchill died in 1965. But the London-area man was forced to remove the bird from the shop after she kept swearing at children.
Oram's garden center in Reigate, England, Heathfield Nurseries, has been the macaw's home for the past 12 years.
"If truth be told, Charlie is looking a little scruffy but she is very popular with the public," said Heathfield worker Sylvia Martin, according to the Mirror. "We are all very attached to her."
Steve Nichols, founder of Britain's National Parrot Sanctuary, told Reuters although parrots often do not reach age 40 in the wild, some had lived to 110.
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Foul-mouth parrot mimics Churchill's wartime thoughts
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Mon Jan 19,10:23 AM ET
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LONDON (AFP) - The inner thoughts of Britain's wartime leader Winston Churchill live on, thanks to the foul mouth of his 104-year-old parrot who lives at a garden centre in southeast England.
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"F*** Hitler! F*** the Nazis!" says Charlie, a female blue and gold macaw which Churchill bought in 1937, two years before the outbreak of World War II in Europe.
"Parrots are remarkably adept at mimicking sounds and voices," says an article about Charlie in the February issue of Jack, a British men's magazine, which hits the newsstands on Thursday.
"So when Charlie gives her opinion of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, it is rendered with a Churchillian inflection," it said.
Following Churchill's death in 1965, Charlie was sold to pet shop owner Peter Oram, who keeps her at the garden centre in Reigate, Surrey, where she wanders around the grounds in summer but stays indoors in the winter.
"She is a very old parrot," Sylvia Martin, who works with Oram, told Jack. "She has become increasingly quarrelsome -- and, if the truth be told, is now looking a little scruffy."
Who'd a thunk it ?
Stay Safe ya'll !
"So when Charlie gives her opinion of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, it is rendered with a Churchillian inflection," it said.
Someone needs to get a recording device in this august parrot's presence before it's too late.
Lovely plumage, the Norwegian Blue...
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Maybe one of the candidates wants to buy him?
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