Letter: Josephine Pullein-Thompson's empathy for all creatures

Although her formal education was sketchy, Josephine Pullein-Thompson was extremely well-read. She also had an excellent verbal memory, and even when old and ill could produce without hesitation substantial chunks of poetry learned in youth, some of it recondite.

Nor was her feeling for horses in any way exclusive, but, rather, part of the intelligent and sane empathy she extended to people and indeed all living creatures. In her later years, she particularly cultivated the birds that visited her garden in Fulham, south-west London, and a succession of tame blackbird families would flutter about her open French windows waiting for their daily feed bits of chopped grape were part of the menu.

Continue reading...