The day that changed my life

4:00pm Monday 14th January 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

THE day that changed my life happened over 30 years ago.

My four sons had all grown up and my husband and I were a little bored, and found ourselves looking for something to fill our time.

We saw an article in the paper about the Essex Badger Protection Group needing new volunteers and before long we found ourselves spending a couple of nights a week checking badger sets for signs of badger baiting, which was a big problem at the time.

We did that for several years before I received a phone call one day from a chap who said his dog had come home with a fox in his mouth and could we help. Little did we realise that phone call was about to change our lives.

He'd rung us because we were the only people he knew who did anything involving animals. At that time there was no-one in Essex looking after injured wildlife.

We took the cub in and quickly discovered it had epilepsy and would be on medication for the rest of her life. We knew she couldn't be let go, so we decided to spoil her.

Bonny was just like a dog. She was absolutely gorgeous and would sit with me at breakfast and share my toast. We built a pen for her and for the next 16 years thoroughly enjoyed having her around.

But that really started the ball running. Once we took her in everyone got to know about it and we were given another three foxes straight after. That's when we set up Rescuers Animal Centre. The council kindly found us some land to buy and we were able to slowly expand.

Over the years we've had badgers, squirrels, ducks, chicken, goats and a huge number of birds of prey to look after. We've also had three of our volunteers go on to train as vets and one who works at London Zoo.

It's hard work and love that's kept us going all these years. We just love doing it. There are days when we get depressed, we've had to deal with a lot of road traffic accidents. Even the vet gets depressed when we turn up!

We haven't got any plans to stop doing it just yet, although we do hope one day that someone will come along, with the same absolute love, and be able to take over.

*Tell us about a day that changed your life. It can be happy, sad, funny, inspirational. It just needs to be focused on one day that means a lot to you. If we use your story we will send you a beauty prize worth £50 from Debenhams, Basildon.

Send details of your story to us at echowoman@nqe.com by post to Echo Woman, Features, The Echo, Newspaper House, Chester Hall Lane, Basildon, Essex, SS14 3BL or call 01268 469380.

ends