The Shrewsbury pub parrot who sang but never swore
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Laura sang like a soprano and resisted regulars’ attempts to teach her bad habits
Rather naturally, regulars at the Red Barn in Shrewsbury made attempts to teach the pub's pet parrot to swear.
But they appear never to have succeeded. Not that Laura was short of a vocabulary. Customers entering the bar might be met by a sweet soprano voice singing "Pop Goes The Weasel" or "Three Blind Mice."
There's a consensus too that "Half a Pound of Tuppenny Rice" was part of her repertoire. She sang nursery rhymes, whistled and talked - but never swore.
Her cage door at the pub in Longden Road was always open and Laura would often perch on top of it during licensing hours to keep an eye on what was going on.
There can't be many people around who can still remember Laura, who belonged to licensee Sammy Brooke.
A Blue Fronted Amazon parrot, she featured in a story in the Express & Star in 1950. Boer War veteran Sammy was in his 80th year back then, having been at the Red Barn for 53 years - he was destined to be the landlord for 57 years in total - while Laura had been at the pub for 22 years. As her age was given as 25, she must have arrived as a three-year-old.
As befits a legend, tales about her abound. In 2000 Vic Powell, who was then 80, shared his memories of the pub parrot dating to the early 1930s.
"The old Red Barn used to be right alongside the road and there was a big oak tree outside. This parrot used to hang in the oak tree right opposite the cemetery and when the hearses came up for funerals would recite: ‘What's happened to the poor pussycat?’” he would recall.
"At the time they were building the Shrewsbury bypass just up the road. There was a big Irish labour force which used to come trudging down the road in the evening. They used to have a conversation with this parrot - and it was not all one way. The parrot could answer back pretty well."
Few people could have known her better than Sammy's grandson Colin Brooke, who kept her at his home in Vane Road, Shrewsbury, during her final years.
"She was bought by my grandfather for £5 in the Bull Ring in Birmingham," Colin would recall.
"I would think it was roughly after the First World War and possibly he was looking for something to bring home or as a present. She never swore at all. Most of the customers tried to get her to swear, but she never picked it up.
"She said 'Half a Pound of Tuppenny Rice' as clear as anything. Then there was ‘How are you?’, ‘Hello,’ all the main things."
He had Laura on his hand many times, but sometimes she objected to being handled by some people.
"Especially if there was somebody loud. She used to make the blood run pretty quick. The end of a parrot’s beak is like a needle."
Mr Brooke’s nephew Rob Morgan got to become Laura’s mate when he was six or seven. They got on particularly well, and she would ride on his back and shoulder as he pedalled about on his bicycle.
Rob would remember that she could not fly, having lost the use of her wings by being in the cage, and perhaps due to her advancing years.
Laura became a deceased, extinct, ex-parrot in about 1968.
She was buried by Colin's greenhouse.
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