In the news
19 Jul 2008
5 September 2006
Joanna Lumley, proud patron of the Dr Hadwen Trust
Throughout a high-profile career that has made her one of the most respected and loved personalities in UK entertainment, Joanna Lumley OBE has tirelessly championed many animal causes and is a patron of the Dr Hadwen Trust. We caught up with her in the middle of a busy filming schedule, to chat about animal advocacy and her hopes for the future.
Q: How long have you been involved with the Dr Hadwen Trust?
A: It must be 20 years ago now. Dr Gill Langley wrote to me after hearing me speaking up for another animal charity – I’ve been a Patron ever since.
Q: You’ve been an advocate for justice for animals on many fronts, but what makes you a Dr Hadwen Trust supporter?
A: There are lots of reasons, but at the core I think is one’s gut reaction. We’re so often told that it is being soft-hearted to take the animals’ side, but I believe we should have the courage to trust in our own instincts. It isn’t wrong to make choices by gut reaction – if animal experiments repel us, then we don’t have to abandon how we feel in the face of bland reassurances from those who tell us animals don’t have feelings in the way that we do.
I find it absolutely insupportable that a creature that has as much right to life as I have, just because they do things differently and don’t speak ‘human being’, should give up its life or indeed endure any kind of torture. I’m anti-vivisection because I dont think it works at any level. The sheer blind cruelty of vivisection makes it wrong.
I think we’ll look back in twenty years’ time and say ‘I can’t believe we did these things as a society, how primitive we were’. I’ve long believed the Dr Hadwen Trust’s approach to be the right way, it enables us to support research and advance medicine with a clear conscience, and without animal experiments.
Q: Who has influenced you most and shaped your views?
A: My mother had a passion for animals, even insects. As a very young child I was taught to handle them: snakes, frogs and spiders; always to respect them and never to kill them – always to try to find a way of releasing the fly or the wasp, even to move a wayward snail from the pavement. It’s thanks to my mother that I have a fascination with the living world and a love for all creatures.
Q: With the schedule you have, is it possible to relax?
A: I love reading. I love gardening. I love travelling, and music of course; and combining the two: to see my husband, Stephen, where he is conducting an opera is a great privilege. And I have two grand-daughters, they’re really the very business. I love reading to them, and I’m itching for them to grow up, so I can teach them to love animals – and everybody.
