Churchill's Parrot Still Swearing

[Uri Guttman]

i think this is on topic. :)

uri

F*** THE NAZIS, SAYS CHURCHILL'S PARROT

Jan 19 2004

EXCLUSIVE

By Bill Borrows

SHE WAS at Winston Churchill's side during Britain's darkest hour. And
now Charlie the parrot is 104 years old...and still cursing the Nazis.

[Picture]

Her favourite sayings were "F*** Hitler" and "F*** the Nazis". And even
today, 39 years after the great man's death, she can still be coaxed
into repeating them with that unmistakable Churchillian inflection.

Many an admiral or peer of the realm was shocked by the tirade from the
bird's cage during crisis meetings with the PM.

But it always brought a smile to the war leader's face.

Churchill bought Charlie - giving him a boy's name despite the fact she
was female - in 1937.

She took pride of place in a bizarre menagerie of pets including lambs,
pigs, cattle, swans and, at one point, a leopard.

He immediately began to teach her to swear - particularly in company -
and she is keeping up the tradition today.

The blue and gold macaw is believed to be Britain's oldest bird.

The title was previously thought to belong to 80-year-old Cokky the
cockatoo.

But it can be proved Charlie is at least 104 and was born in the 19th
century.

Peter Oram bought her for his pet shop after Churchill died in 1965.
But he was forced to move her into his home after she kept swearing at
children.

For the last 12 years, she has lived at Mr Oram's garden centre in
Reigate, Surrey.

Centre worker Sylvia Martin said: "If truth be told, Charlie is looking
a little scruffy but she is very popular with the public. We are all
very attached to her."

James Humes, an expert on the late PM, said: "Churchill may no longer
be with us but that spirit and those words of defiance and resolve
continue."

Charlie's story is in this month's Jack Magazine, on sale Thursday.

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