{"id":241890,"date":"2023-11-25T07:48:09","date_gmt":"2023-11-25T07:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lovemainstream.com\/?p=241890"},"modified":"2023-11-25T07:48:09","modified_gmt":"2023-11-25T07:48:09","slug":"dame-judi-dench-i-grew-up-with-16-cats-and-have-now-adopted-a-bear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lovemainstream.com\/celebrities\/dame-judi-dench-i-grew-up-with-16-cats-and-have-now-adopted-a-bear\/","title":{"rendered":"Dame Judi Dench: ‘I grew up with 16 cats and have now adopted a bear’"},"content":{"rendered":"

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As perhaps the most treasured of all our national treasures \u2013 a tag she dislikes but simply cannot escape \u2013 it\u2019s a given that Dame Judi Dench is one of our finest actresses. If not the finest. She has after all in her possession an Academy Award, a Tony, six British Academy Film Awards, four British Academy Television Awards, seven Laurence Oliviers and countless other nominations.<\/p>\n

She also has a passion for the Bard and in her recently published book, Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays The Rent, she opens up, about every Shakespearean role she has played throughout her long, uber-illustrious career. What is less well known about Dame Judi, however, is her passion for animals and the profound part they\u2019ve played in her life since childhood.<\/p>\n

The biggest clue came four years ago when she played Old Deuteronomy in the 2019 film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber\u2019s smash-hit musical Cats.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suppose it starts with the fact that when I was a child growing up in York during the war, we had 16 cats,\u201d chuckles the 88-year-old star of stage and screen.<\/p>\n

Don’t miss… <\/strong> Judi Dench in tears as she overcomes deteriorating eyesight in special moment<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cYes 16! My pa was a doctor for people not just in the city itself but also in the outlying areas which included quite a few farms.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes, he\u2019d be given a chicken or a duck to bring back for us to eat. Food was so scarce at the time and we were terribly lucky. The cats in the area soon got wind\u00a0of this, having been fed the scraps, and so that\u2019s how we ended up with 16.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having shared her life with pets from such a young age, Dame Judi feels animals have much to teach children about life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such a good thing for children to have animals around,\u201d she continues. \u201cIt\u2019s so beneficial. It makes them very, very much aware of the responsibility that comes with caring for creatures \u2013 the experience of having a dog, cats, a hamster or whatever. When my grandson Sammy was small, he had a pet rat.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s about understanding something different and how caring for animals is terribly important. And if you start, you know, with a child with a pet and you teach your child those things, I mean, then with any luck that child will go on all his or her life to care about the wellbeing of animals.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just children who benefit from contact with animals, either.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all do. Recently, I went to see a friend who was very, very ill, and on her bed was a wonderful cat who just wandered about and was allowed to jump up.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd, well, I can\u2019t think of anything nicer than having a cat jump up and lie down in your bed beside you. What a wonderful comfort. I don\u2019t have any animals in the house at the moment but it\u2019s the first time in a very long time I haven\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n