Author: DOuG pRATt

Petula Clark in Wales

Petula in Wales

Petula Clark is half-Welsh, and she spent a goodly part of her childhood in Wales. A few weeks ago, before her San Francisco concert, Pet was in Wales, visiting her grammar school. A TV show about the visit was shown tonight in Wales. Maybe it will show up somewhere online.

In the meantime, you can click here to go to a BBC page with pictures and a 15-minute interview from Welsh radio. Petula is 74 now, as charming as ever, in fine form, and still singing beautifully.

The radio interview is in Real format, which is often a problem, so I’ll provide it here on the trusty MP3 player.

[audio:https://dograt.com/Audio/MAR07/Pet2007.mp3]

Petula Clark – 1942

Leslie and Pet Clark

Let’s backtrack — way back — to Petula as a child starlet in war-torn England. Here she is at 10 with her father, Leslie Clark. Open the audio player to hear a bit of her singing on the BBC for her uncle, a soldier stationed in, yes, Iraq.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/MAR07/Petula1942.mp3]

This is how the English came to know Petula Clark, and she just couldn’t shake this image until she moved to France, nearly 20 years later.

Don’t Register!

Previously, I highlighted the fact that it was possible to register yourself with this Web site. It was this feature that provided the recent infestation a way in. The updated software should prevent it from happening again, but nevertheless I have disabled the feature.

I don’t want to go through another attack like that! After I realized what had happened, I sat stunned for five minutes, wanting to read “My Pet Goat”! 😉

Petula Clark – 1961

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/FEB07/sttropez.flv 400 300]

Here’s Pet on American TV for the first time, still with her old style and look, and still unknown in this country. Only one month before this she had married Claude Wolff.

Moving to France, close to 30, Pet transformed herself yet again. It was a change for the better, because she was seen as the woman she was, and not as the girl the English remembered.

Pratt Attack – 9

Mitt Romney is no longer governor of Massachusetts. Now he’s running for the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States.

Being a resident of the state (or, like Virginia, “Commonwealth”), I feel Romney did one thing worthy of note. He forced Billy Boy Bulger, brother and protector of the infamous crook Whitey, out as president of the University of Massachusetts. Other than that, I’m inclined to agree with Mike Dobbs‘ opinion of Mitt Romney.

What does this have to do with my family name? Romney’s great-great grandfather was the infamous Mormon leader and polygamist Parley Pratt. Yes, the very same Parley Pratt who had 11 — no, 12! — wives, and was murdered in 1857 by the former husband of one of them. Whew!

Here’s the story of the Romney-Pratt connection:

Polygamy a prominent feature in Romney’s family tree

By Jennifer Dobner, Associated Press Writers | February 24, 2007

SALT LAKE CITY –While Mitt Romney condemns polygamy and its prior practice by his Mormon church, the Republican presidential candidate’s great-grandfather had five wives and at least one of his great-great grandfathers had 12.

Polygamy was not just a historical footnote, but a prominent element in the family tree of the former Massachusetts governor now seeking to become the first Mormon president.

Romney’s great-grandfather, Miles Park Romney, married his fifth wife in 1897. That was more than six years after Mormon leaders banned polygamy and more than three decades after a federal law barred the practice.

Romney’s great-grandmother, Hannah Hood Hill, was the daughter of polygamists. She wrote vividly in her autobiography about how she “used to walk the floor and shed tears of sorrow” over her own husband’s multiple marriages.

Romney’s great-great grandfather, Parley Pratt, an apostle in the church, had 12 wives. In an 1852 sermon, Parley Pratt’s brother and fellow apostle, Orson Pratt, became the first church official to publicly proclaim and defend polygamy as a direct revelation from God.
Continue reading Pratt Attack – 9