A stalwart RSPCA volunteer who dedicated more than 40 years looking after dogs in the care of the charity’s Millbrook Animal Centre in Surrey has sadly passed away, aged 104.
Sally Field was still walking dogs at the centre near Chobham beyond her 102nd birthday and her long stint of volunteering work also included helping out cooking and serving food at the centre’s cafe and taking part in the charity’s fundraising activities.
The incredible and dedicated Surrey-based volunteer had told centre staff that dog walking “kept her going” beyond her 100th birthday!
Staff at the centre have paid tribute to the centenarian, who was chosen as a King’s Coronation Champion in May during the Big Help Out initiative to mark her contribution to volunteering over so many years.
Millbrook Animal Centre manager Sue Walters said: “We are all devastated about this news as Sally has been a big part of the team here for decades.
“She was truly an amazing person and a dedicated volunteer who helped us out for so long and all in her own time. She walked so many of our dogs and rehomed some of them too – Millbrook was such a big part of her life.
“We tried to encourage her to wind down and not take as many dogs out in her later years, but she said it kept her going and she loved them all.
“When she eventually stopped her dog walking, she would come up to the centre and would sit with them for company. The staff were all delighted to see her too.”
The dog-loving pensioner was known to walk up to 10 of the centre’s canines a week. Millbrook estimates that over 2,000 different dogs took their ‘walkies’ on Sally’s leads, while she also provided homes for the eight canines she adopted, including her last, a terrier cross called Poppet.
“She lost her last dog last year, so volunteers would take the dogs around to her home. Two of her volunteers, Jackie, one of Sally’s best friends, and Ruth, would always go around to catch up with her and take along their dogs,” added the animal centre manager.
“She won many awards for her volunteering and met Paul O’Grady at the Animal Heroes awards ceremony – she was very upset when she heard about Paul’s passing this year.
“Her Coronation Champions award was a fitting recognition for all she had done and she was able to come into the centre (pictured) to show her certificate to us all. She will be dearly missed, but forever remembered and loved by our staff, volunteers and of course by all the animals, especially all the dogs she helped over the last 40 years.”
Sally lived all her life at Addlestone in Surrey. As a young woman she worked in the Vickers factory in Weybridge during World War II and escaped when the factory was hit by a Nazi bombing raid.
Later she worked as a cook at Chertsey Fire Station and she nursed her husband Ted for more than two decades before his death in 1999, two weeks before the couple’s golden wedding anniversary.
It wasn’t just the RSPCA who benefited from her kind heart and love of dogs as she was well known for walking her neighbours’ pets and caring for members of her community who were housebound.
