Volunteer Doris celebrates her hundreth birthday ...
21 August 2023
Branch homing volunteer Sheila Pennell was delighted when Peter Shergold, CPs Head of Field Operations, dropped in to see her aunt Doris Weir – with a card for her 100th birthday and a big box of chocolates!
Says Peter: “Doris must be CPs oldest supporter, and regaled me with tales of her time volunteering for the Waveney Branch when she lived in Bungay – Norfolk way. She showed us photos of her ‘TNR’ days – encouraging farmers to get their ‘keep-the-vermin-down’ cats neutered, fostering cats and kittens herself, making home visits of sometimes 25 miles and more, managing the CP shop, and growing and selling her flowers on the once-a-month ‘CP table at the Buttercross’ in Bungay.”
This was the second time they’d met, and as Peter was on summer holiday child-care duties, he took along his young daughter Scout. Says Doris, who was a nurse in Coventry during the war, and later a midwife, health visitor and senior nursing officer: “I’d just had a cake delivered, and the sweet little girl sat on Peter’s lap eyeing it up! One slice was so enjoyed she soon asked for another!”
Slices of cake are rather like adopting a cat – much better to have two!