US election: Ann Romney tells Republicans of Welsh roots
Mitt Romney's wife has described her Welsh grandfather's determination to give his family a better life as her husband was formally selected as the US Republican presidential candidate.
Ann Romney told Republicans her grandfather saw opportunity in the US.
On the plane to the party convention in Florida, she handed out Welsh cakes based on her grandmother's recipe.
She spent a day at Llangynwyd, near Maesteg, earlier this month for a visit filmed for American TV.
"I am the granddaughter of a Welsh coal miner who was determined that his kids get out of the mines," Mrs Romney told the convention.
"My dad got his first job when he was six years old, in a little village in Wales called Nantyffyllon, cleaning bottles at the Colliers Arms.
"When he was 15, Dad came to America. In our country, he saw hope and an opportunity to escape from poverty.
"He moved to a small town in the great state of Michigan. There, he started a business - one he built himself, by the way.
"He raised a family. And he became mayor of our town."
Mrs Romney 's grandfather was David Davies, a miner who emigrated to the USA in the 1920s.
Mr Davies worked at Coegnant Colliery before moving to Detroit in 1929 to work in the car industry.
He was later joined by his wife, Annie, and his son, Edward, who was Mrs Romney's father.
Dressed in red, Mrs Romney also told the convention about how she fell in love with her husband at a high-school dance and the pair married despite their youth.
En route to Tampa Mrs Romney passed out her Welsh cakes, which she said was a tweak of an old family recipe belonging to her grandmother.
The recipe was later published in the Washington Post newspaper.
Mrs Romney visited Llangynwyd earlier in August, and spent a day at the 850-year-old pub the Old House for an NBC programme.
While there she dined on a Welsh-themed lunch which included Welsh rarebit, rack of lamb, wild mushroom and pea risotto, with a selection of Welsh cheeses.
On behalf of my country, I apologise!
On behalf of my country, I apologise!
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: On behalf of my country, I apologise!
Wales is a county? Or a country?
The size and population are those of a small county in the western US. Or a tiny country in the G-20.
yrs,
rubato
The size and population are those of a small county in the western US. Or a tiny country in the G-20.
yrs,
rubato
Re: On behalf of my country, I apologise!
That's lovely Francine....Wales is a county? Or a country?
The size and population are those of a small county in the western US. Or a tiny country in the G-20.
yrs,
rubato
This is a man who can't work out a single, simple, mathematical table properly, but imagines himself a "scientist".....
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7131&p=88308&hilit=wow#p88308
I, the guy who never took a math course beyond Algebra II Trig, (and wouldn't know "calculus" from Shinola) rests his case....
Re: On behalf of my country, I apologise!
Your lack of mathematical skill is obvious.
You are too stupid to be worth the slightest effort.
yrs,
rubato
You are too stupid to be worth the slightest effort.
yrs,
rubato
Re: On behalf of my country, I apologise!
It's a country. It's just next to England and Scotland.
Bah!
Re: On behalf of my country, I apologise!
Your lack of mathematical skill is obvious.
You are too stupid to be worth the slightest effort.
yrs,
rubato
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7131&p=88308&hilit=wow#p88308
Last edited by Lord Jim on Thu Aug 30, 2012 1:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: On behalf of my country, I apologise!
The only Welshman you have to apologize for is Henry Morton Stanley.
A serious asshole by most accounts but since he was here a lot more than there maybe we can blame it on ourselves?:
"Early life
Henry Morton Stanley, 1890
When Stanley was born in Denbigh, Wales, his mother, Elizabeth Parry, was 19 years old. He never knew his father, who died within a few weeks of his birth;[1] there is some doubt as to his true parentage.[2] His parents were unmarried, so his birth certificate refers to him as a bastard and the stigma of illegitimacy weighed heavily upon him all his life.
Originally taking his father's name of Rowlands, Stanley was brought up by his grandfather until the age of five. When his guardian died, Stanley stayed at first with cousins and nieces for a short time, but was eventually sent to St. Asaph Union Workhouse for the poor, where overcrowding and lack of supervision resulted in frequent abuse by the older boys. When he was ten, his mother and two siblings stayed for a short while in this workhouse, without Stanley realising who they were. He stayed until the age of 15. After completing an elementary education, he was employed as a pupil teacher in a National School.
New country, new name
In 1859, at the age of 18, he made his passage to the United States in search of a new life. Upon arriving in New Orleans, he absconded from his boat. According to his own declarations, he became friendly with a wealthy trader named Henry Hope Stanley, by accident: he saw Stanley sitting on a chair outside his store and asked him if he had any job opening for a person such as himself. However, he did so in the British style, "Do you want a boy, sir?" As it happened, the childless man had indeed been wishing he had a boy of his own, and the inquiry led not only to a job, but to a close relationship.[3] The youth ended up taking Stanley's name. Later, he would write that his adoptive parent had died only two years after their meeting, but in fact the elder Stanley did not die until much later, in 1878.[4] In any case, young Stanley assumed a local accent and began to deny being a foreigner.
Stanley participated reluctantly[5] in the American Civil War, first joining the Confederate Army and fighting in the Battle of Shiloh in 1862.[6] After being taken prisoner he was recruited at Camp Douglas, Illinois by its commander, Col. James A. Mulligan, as a "Galvanized Yankee" and joined the Union Army on 4 June 1862, but was discharged 18 days later due to severe illness.[7] Recovering, he served on several merchant ships before joining the Navy in July 1864. On board the Minnesota he became a record keeper, which led to freelance journalism. Stanley and a junior colleague jumped ship on 10 February 1865 in New Hampshire, in search of greater adventures.[8] Stanley thus became possibly the only man to serve in the Confederate Army, the Union Army, and the Union Navy.[9]
Following the Civil War, Stanley began a career as a journalist. As part of this new career, Stanley organised an expedition to the Ottoman Empire that ended catastrophically when Stanley was imprisoned. He eventually talked his way out of jail and even received restitution for damaged expedition equipment.[10]
Stanley's graffiti at Persepolis, Iran
In 1867, Stanley was recruited by Colonel Samuel Forster Tappan (a one-time journalist) of the Indian Peace Commission, to serve as a correspondent to cover the work of the Commission for several newspapers. Stanley was soon retained exclusively by James Gordon Bennett (1795–1872), founder of the New York Herald, who was impressed by Stanley's exploits and by his direct style of writing. He describes this early period of his professional life in Volume I of his book My Early Travels and Adventures in America and Asia (1895). He became one of the Herald's overseas correspondents and, in 1869, was instructed by Bennett's son to find the Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone, who was known to be in Africa but had not been heard from for some time. According to Stanley's account, he asked James Gordon Bennett, Jr. (1841–1918), who had succeeded to the paper's management after his father's retirement in 1867, how much he could spend. The reply was "Draw £1,000 now, and when you have gone through that, draw another £1,000, and when that is spent, draw another £1,000, and when you have finished that, draw another £1,000, and so on — BUT FIND LIVINGSTONE!", In actuality, Stanley had lobbied his employer for several years to mount this expedition which presumably would lead to fame and fortune.
1872 Carte de visite – Stanley and Kalulu.
Finding Livingstone
"Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" A contemporary illustration.
Stanley travelled to Zanzibar in March 1871 and outfitted an expedition with the best of everything, requiring no fewer than 200 porters. This 700 miles (1,100 km) expedition through the tropical forest became a nightmare. His thoroughbred stallion died within a few days after a bite from a Tsetse fly, many of his carriers deserted and the rest were decimated by tropical diseases.
Some recent authors suggest that Stanley's treatment of indigenous porters helps to refute his reputation for brutality.[11] However, statements by contemporaries of Stanley like Sir Richard Francis Burton, who claimed "Stanley shoots negroes as if they were monkeys", paint a very different picture.[12][13] Stanley found Livingstone on 10 November 1871, in Ujiji near Lake Tanganyika in present-day Tanzania, and may have greeted him with the now-famous, "Doctor Livingstone, I presume?" This famous phrase may be a fabrication, as Stanley tore out of his diary the pages relating to the encounter.[14] Even Livingstone's account of the encounter fails to mention these words. However, a summary of Stanley's letters published by The New York Times on 2 July 1872, quotes the phrase.[15] However, Tim Jeal argues in his biography that Stanley invented it afterwards because of his "insecurity about his background".[16]
The Herald's own first account of the meeting, published 2 July 1872, also includes the phrase: "Preserving a calmness of exterior before the Arabs which was hard to simulate as he reached the group, Mr. Stanley said: – Doctor Livingstone, I presume? A smile lit up the features of the hale white man as he answered: "Yes, and I feel thankful that I am here to welcome you."[17][18]
Stanley joined Livingstone in exploring the region, establishing for certain that there was no connection between Lake Tanganyika and the River Nile. On his return, he wrote a book about his experiences : How I Found Livingstone; travels, adventures, and discoveries in Central Africa.[19]
... "
yrs,
rubato
A serious asshole by most accounts but since he was here a lot more than there maybe we can blame it on ourselves?:
"Early life
Henry Morton Stanley, 1890
When Stanley was born in Denbigh, Wales, his mother, Elizabeth Parry, was 19 years old. He never knew his father, who died within a few weeks of his birth;[1] there is some doubt as to his true parentage.[2] His parents were unmarried, so his birth certificate refers to him as a bastard and the stigma of illegitimacy weighed heavily upon him all his life.
Originally taking his father's name of Rowlands, Stanley was brought up by his grandfather until the age of five. When his guardian died, Stanley stayed at first with cousins and nieces for a short time, but was eventually sent to St. Asaph Union Workhouse for the poor, where overcrowding and lack of supervision resulted in frequent abuse by the older boys. When he was ten, his mother and two siblings stayed for a short while in this workhouse, without Stanley realising who they were. He stayed until the age of 15. After completing an elementary education, he was employed as a pupil teacher in a National School.
New country, new name
In 1859, at the age of 18, he made his passage to the United States in search of a new life. Upon arriving in New Orleans, he absconded from his boat. According to his own declarations, he became friendly with a wealthy trader named Henry Hope Stanley, by accident: he saw Stanley sitting on a chair outside his store and asked him if he had any job opening for a person such as himself. However, he did so in the British style, "Do you want a boy, sir?" As it happened, the childless man had indeed been wishing he had a boy of his own, and the inquiry led not only to a job, but to a close relationship.[3] The youth ended up taking Stanley's name. Later, he would write that his adoptive parent had died only two years after their meeting, but in fact the elder Stanley did not die until much later, in 1878.[4] In any case, young Stanley assumed a local accent and began to deny being a foreigner.
Stanley participated reluctantly[5] in the American Civil War, first joining the Confederate Army and fighting in the Battle of Shiloh in 1862.[6] After being taken prisoner he was recruited at Camp Douglas, Illinois by its commander, Col. James A. Mulligan, as a "Galvanized Yankee" and joined the Union Army on 4 June 1862, but was discharged 18 days later due to severe illness.[7] Recovering, he served on several merchant ships before joining the Navy in July 1864. On board the Minnesota he became a record keeper, which led to freelance journalism. Stanley and a junior colleague jumped ship on 10 February 1865 in New Hampshire, in search of greater adventures.[8] Stanley thus became possibly the only man to serve in the Confederate Army, the Union Army, and the Union Navy.[9]
Following the Civil War, Stanley began a career as a journalist. As part of this new career, Stanley organised an expedition to the Ottoman Empire that ended catastrophically when Stanley was imprisoned. He eventually talked his way out of jail and even received restitution for damaged expedition equipment.[10]
Stanley's graffiti at Persepolis, Iran
In 1867, Stanley was recruited by Colonel Samuel Forster Tappan (a one-time journalist) of the Indian Peace Commission, to serve as a correspondent to cover the work of the Commission for several newspapers. Stanley was soon retained exclusively by James Gordon Bennett (1795–1872), founder of the New York Herald, who was impressed by Stanley's exploits and by his direct style of writing. He describes this early period of his professional life in Volume I of his book My Early Travels and Adventures in America and Asia (1895). He became one of the Herald's overseas correspondents and, in 1869, was instructed by Bennett's son to find the Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone, who was known to be in Africa but had not been heard from for some time. According to Stanley's account, he asked James Gordon Bennett, Jr. (1841–1918), who had succeeded to the paper's management after his father's retirement in 1867, how much he could spend. The reply was "Draw £1,000 now, and when you have gone through that, draw another £1,000, and when that is spent, draw another £1,000, and when you have finished that, draw another £1,000, and so on — BUT FIND LIVINGSTONE!", In actuality, Stanley had lobbied his employer for several years to mount this expedition which presumably would lead to fame and fortune.
1872 Carte de visite – Stanley and Kalulu.
Finding Livingstone
"Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" A contemporary illustration.
Stanley travelled to Zanzibar in March 1871 and outfitted an expedition with the best of everything, requiring no fewer than 200 porters. This 700 miles (1,100 km) expedition through the tropical forest became a nightmare. His thoroughbred stallion died within a few days after a bite from a Tsetse fly, many of his carriers deserted and the rest were decimated by tropical diseases.
Some recent authors suggest that Stanley's treatment of indigenous porters helps to refute his reputation for brutality.[11] However, statements by contemporaries of Stanley like Sir Richard Francis Burton, who claimed "Stanley shoots negroes as if they were monkeys", paint a very different picture.[12][13] Stanley found Livingstone on 10 November 1871, in Ujiji near Lake Tanganyika in present-day Tanzania, and may have greeted him with the now-famous, "Doctor Livingstone, I presume?" This famous phrase may be a fabrication, as Stanley tore out of his diary the pages relating to the encounter.[14] Even Livingstone's account of the encounter fails to mention these words. However, a summary of Stanley's letters published by The New York Times on 2 July 1872, quotes the phrase.[15] However, Tim Jeal argues in his biography that Stanley invented it afterwards because of his "insecurity about his background".[16]
The Herald's own first account of the meeting, published 2 July 1872, also includes the phrase: "Preserving a calmness of exterior before the Arabs which was hard to simulate as he reached the group, Mr. Stanley said: – Doctor Livingstone, I presume? A smile lit up the features of the hale white man as he answered: "Yes, and I feel thankful that I am here to welcome you."[17][18]
Stanley joined Livingstone in exploring the region, establishing for certain that there was no connection between Lake Tanganyika and the River Nile. On his return, he wrote a book about his experiences : How I Found Livingstone; travels, adventures, and discoveries in Central Africa.[19]
... "
yrs,
rubato
Last edited by rubato on Thu Aug 30, 2012 1:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: On behalf of my country, I apologise!
That actor fellow is not much of a prize either:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Burton
yrs,
rubato
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Burton
yrs,
rubato
Re: On behalf of my country, I apologise!
Well, there's the problem, right there!The Hen wrote:It's a country. It's just next to England and Scotland.
Your collective inability to acknowledge this obvious truth makes you all look like fools.
yrs,
rubato
Re: On behalf of my country, I apologise!
He's dead and you're not.rubato wrote:That actor fellow is not much of a prize either:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Burton
yrs,
rubato
He'll be remebered for better or worse and you?
Your collective inability to acknowledge this obvious truth makes you all look like fools.
yrs,
rubato
Re: On behalf of my country, I apologise!
I'm still waiting on an apology for Shakin' fucking Stevens!
Why is it that when Miley Cyrus gets naked and licks a hammer it's 'art' and 'edgy' but when I do it I'm 'drunk' and 'banned from the hardware store'?
Re: On behalf of my country, I apologise!
Yes, I'm sure you're trying a different tact, and trying to throw others on the defensive...
Perfectly understandable for a man who clams to be a "scientist" who can't even grasp a one column table...
Were I in your fix, I'd do the same....
Perfectly understandable for a man who clams to be a "scientist" who can't even grasp a one column table...
Were I in your fix, I'd do the same....
Re: On behalf of my country, I apologise!
l
But your being pig ignorant of everything is the hallmark of your being a pig ignorant cunt!
Then he goes on to give us some daft blithering about Richard Burton, did he work on a Norwegian oil rig or something?
Retard is hitting the cheap gin early these days!!
Which has absolutely nothing to do with what constitutes a country.rubato wrote:Wales is a county? Or a country?
The size and population are those of a small county in the western US. Or a tiny country in the G-20.
But your being pig ignorant of everything is the hallmark of your being a pig ignorant cunt!
Then he goes on to give us some daft blithering about Richard Burton, did he work on a Norwegian oil rig or something?
Retard is hitting the cheap gin early these days!!
Shakin Stevens IS an apology for Shakin Stevens!Sean wrote:I'm still waiting on an apology for Shakin' fucking Stevens!
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: On behalf of my country, I apologise!
That makes about as much sense as... well, Shakin' Stevens!Gob wrote:Shakin Stevens IS an apology for Shakin Stevens!
Why is it that when Miley Cyrus gets naked and licks a hammer it's 'art' and 'edgy' but when I do it I'm 'drunk' and 'banned from the hardware store'?
Re: On behalf of my country, I apologise!
I always shake my Stevens.
I do it every day.
It doesn't make me happy
But it does make Stevens go away.
I do it every day.
It doesn't make me happy
But it does make Stevens go away.
Bah!
Re: On behalf of my country, I apologise!
Well, it is true that The Prince Of Wales is an English chap....
And has been for about 300 years...
And has been for about 300 years...
Re: On behalf of my country, I apologise!
Oh, he's not that old Jim.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: On behalf of my country, I apologise!
To be fair, he's as much German as he is English. If not more..... 
“I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg, paraphrasing Sarah Moore Grimké
Re: On behalf of my country, I apologise!
All English are German to some extent at least, Anglo- Saxon swine.Guinevere wrote:To be fair, he's as much German as he is English. If not more.....
Soon, I’ll post my farewell message. The end is starting to get close. There are many misconceptions about me, and before I go, to live with my ancestors on the steppes, I want to set the record straight.