Margaret Lockyer
Animal Fund
£9598
Funds raised to date:
Margaret, affectionately known as Peggy, was born 30th May 1916 in Ireland St Johns near Killybegs, County Donegal. She passed away 8th January 2011 in Queen Elizabeth Hospital, age 94, and she was suffering with cancer. She had 9 brothers and sisters and her life was very sparse and poor as in Ireland they had many problems, such as the great potato famine. In school they wrote on slate as there were no books and they often went to school with no shoes. Life was hard but the family was very close. She left Ireland as a young teenager with her sister and travelled to England where work in munitions factories was to be found.
She met James Lockyer who was working at Woolwich Arsenal. They married and returned to Ireland to be with her family in 1944. She had two sons, Jimmy who was born in Ireland and Kieron who born in England. She lived and worked at the co-op stores SE9 for many years and lived then in the Green Lane area of Eltham SE9. She loved bingo and was extremely successful many times. She also found feeding the birds and wild life gave her great pleasure throughout her life.
She and her husband gave a home to a lovely German Shepherd called Judy and she was much loved. Unfortunately after being relocated in council housing they were faced with the terrible decision to give up their beloved Judy. She was 8 years old and suffered from arthritic hips, and they felt she would pine if she was given to somebody else so they made the very difficult decision to have her put to sleep. They never forgot their beloved Judy.
The love of animals was bred into the family and when Peggy passed away her family decided that she would want donations to be given for the benefit of animals in memory of her beloved Judy. As a long standing client of Newnham Court, her son Kieron dedicated those donations to our practice, unknowing that we were in the process of creating a charitable fund to help our most needy patients.
We were so moved by the family’s gesture we asked if we could name our charitable fund after Peggy and were thrilled when they kindly agreed for us to name it The Margaret Lockyer Animal Fund in her memory with these words:
We will be honoured if the fund is named The Margaret Lockyer Animal Fund and know that great things will be achieved by its inception. As a family we have had three retrievers, two we have lost through ill health, (cancer of the spleen) and all were treated by The Veterinary Hospital’s caring vets. What a wonderful legacy for her and our family. Thank you.
Our Fund
We cannot fail to be aware of the unexpected difficulties that we all can become victim to, whether that is sudden high cost illness of our pet, or of course the possibility of our own long-term health or any of the other numerous impacts that we all have to deal with. We all think that “it won’t happen to us” but sometimes despite our best efforts as owners we simply do not have the funds available to treat our pets and we become faced with the dreadful decision to have a pet put to sleep because we cannot afford to have the treatment.
Hindsight will tell us that we should insure all of our pets, but the reality is that we often don’t think about it until it is too late. So we urge to think about that now – you don’t want to be faced with “that” decision.
There are also a number of animals that are abandoned and brought to us with injuries. These could often be successfully treated and result in a young and healthy pet that could be rehomed. Unfortunately because of the lack of funds for these animals, whilst they will be kept free of pain, they may not receive all of the treatment they need and they ultimately have to be put to sleep.
Sadly our little fund will not be able to help everyone, but we are hopeful that we can help some of the neediest pets. To do so, we will of course have to raise funds and we are hoping to do so in a number of ways –
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By charitable donations – just like that given by Peggy’s family, or via our collection boxes
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Donations collection at our events
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Staff events and sponsoring them
Any request for funding will have to be in writing and it will be put before a panel of a qualified vet and nurse and a lay person. This will ensure that all requests are dealt with fairly. Their decision will be final. In many cases the funding will not be for the full cost of treatment but more likely a contribution to the cost.