G'day Alison and all,

I think that the actual birthplace (assuming it isn't one of the less likely contenders in France or Scotland) would now be Wales, but those boundaries were not there at the time. Claiming by geography has its problems, which I might illustrate with an unrelated example:

I was buttonholed by someone (slight overtones of Eastern Europe lurking in the accent) and asked; "How come the Irish claim 'Let Me Take You Home Again, Kathleen'? I started to reply that they will grab anything containing "green" ... or anything that rhymes with it when he continued; "It's not Irish - it's Polish!".

This took me aback somewhat ... it seems that our friend was laying claim to the writer (Peter?) Westerdorfer as a Pole, on the basis that the town he had lived in before going to America was now (or had been once) on the Polish side of the border. I would have to say that Westerdorfer doesn't sound terribly Polish to me ... but that's what you get when you try to construct pedigrees for the songs.

Regards,

Bob Bolton