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The Story Of Foal Farm
Although this is the Cats' website, we will be very honest and confess that a dog was responsible for the birth of Foal Farm!
Rex was an outsize German Shepherd, chained to an old van in a yard. With a broken and bleeding ear, fur coated with oil and grease and his pads raw, he was a pitiful sight but an instant bond sprang up between him and Carl Baker, the man who was to found Foal Farm. The thought that this wonderful creature, who turned out to be so full of love and goodness, intelligence and fun, had been condemned to a life of chained misery and starvation, made Carl come to hate the things that 2 legged creatures do to 4 legged ones and sowed the seed of what was to come.
In those days Carl worked with many animal charities and the first Foal cat arrived via the Cats Protection League, as many still do today. He had volunteered to deliver a litter of their kittens to their new homes but one family had changed their minds and no longer wanted one. They had not thought it necessary to notify anybody, so there was one small black and white kitten surplus to requirements! He had nowhere to go, so joined Rex at the Baker's home, being called Bing as he proved to be very relaxed and sang a lot!
On the 1 August 1960, 20 people met in a disused kitchen and agreed to form a rescue centre, called Friends of Animals League, with the simple aim of saving as many animals as possible, to care for them until fit and well and then place them in good permanent homes.
Cats quickly made their mark on the new organisation, often literally, as the new office occupied a corner of a prefabricated building, the rest being the cat house, so, due to the majority of incoming strays being unneutered males, everything tended to smell of cats!
Initially, the unwanted animals that were brought in were 'shared' around the member's homes but when 10 ponies, rescued from Waltham Marshes, needed urgent accommodation, it was obvious that premises were needed. Fortunately, a kind hearted farmer in Westerham came to the rescue in this instance, lending 40 acres and a Dutch Barn, but the search was on for Foal Farm.
The location of the new premises was critical if enthusiastic volunteers were to be available to assist in the conversion work, but this meant limiting the search to the home counties where property prices were at their highest. Eventually on 23rd May,1962 the Bakers took possession of 'Foal Farm', after selling everything they had. This included their home - an 'island' in the Thames, where they moored their barge, in order to raise the £36,000 needed. It was described as 'an ugly, god forsaken place, well away from main roads and bus services and with no railway station', but it did have a cottage, 20 acres of grazing and 3 acres of woodland!
Although the Baker's had given up everything to realise their dream and were to face years of hardship and toil, jealousy reared its head with accusations of profiteering and self interest and many volunteers just disappeared when they saw the scale of the task that had been taken on. Fortunately, a few stalwarts set to work and one of these was Gwen, an astute businesswoman, who gave up her job as company secretary to take on the unpaid role at Foal Farm. This was a real blessing for the cats as Gwen stated categorically that she 'was only interested in cats' and devoted much of her energy to improving their lot. A cat house was erected - only a shed and put up in a tearing hurry on a cold wet day - but it meant there was somewhere reasonably dry and warm for the cat cages to go. They soon ran out of good cages and had to use old contraptions that looked terrible, but were far better than the vivisection laboratories to which many of the cats would have gone. Far better also than starvation on a bombsite or foraging for food in dustbins and being shoo-ed away with stones and kicks and buckets of water!
To be continued........
