A farmer once told me one of the greatest luxuries of his life was to wake up early only to go back to sleep again.

I seem to have spent a good part of my life - probably too much – in just standing and staring.

I have felt cats rubbing their faces against mine and touching my cheek with claws carefully sheathed. These things, to me, are expressions of love.

I hope to make people realize how totally helpless animals are, how dependent on us, trusting as a child must that we will be kind and take care of their needs.

And there was that letter from the Bramleys—that really made me feel good. You don’t find people like the Bramleys now; radio, television and the motorcar have carried the outside world into the most isolated places so that the simple people you used to meet on the lonely farms are rapidly becoming like people anywhere else. There are still a few left, of course—old folk who cling to the ways of their fathers and when I come across any of them I like to make some excuse to sit down and talk with them and listen to the old Yorkshire words and expressions which have almost disappeared.

And the peace which I always found in the silence and emptiness of the moors filled me utterly

If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.