My charity is my passion

JANET HUGHES chats with the busy Lady Bathurst - the Cotswold countess who is showing no signs of slowing down at the age of 60, working for the retired service dogs and horses charity that she founded in 2022

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SOME people slow down when they get to 60, I seem to have sped up and I'm not sure how that happened," says Countess Bathurst while reflecting on her recent landmark birthday.

Anyone who has spent five minutes in her company could tell her exactly why. It's quite clear that the Cotswold countess's life sped up in her 50s when she developed a passion for saving retired service dogs and horses.

From the moment she wakes up in her Grade ll-listed stately home, to when she finally goes to bed in the early hours of the morning, she is busying herself with The National Foundation for Retired Service Animals, the charity she finally founded in 2022 after years in the making.

Whether it's making videos to update the charity's social media account, fretting about elderly dogs who are under the weather, attending high level meetings or cycling over 1,000 miles from Land's End to John O'Groats with her best friend from school Alice Macaire to raise funds for her charity, she's constantly busy with NFRSA business. Forever messaging and fizzing with ideas, she only half jokes that her PA has to rein her in when she has one too many of her 'bright shiny moments.

"My charity is my absolute passion, I live and breathe it," she admits. "If I died tomorrow, I don't think any of my friends would come to my funeral because they will have all forgotten what I look like, but I'm fairly confident the pews would be filled with police dogs and I'm OK with that."

She is wrong, of course. Many of her friends have been roped in to help. The Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, is a patron. Celebrity ambassadors include Deborah Meaden, Minnie Driver, Ben Miller, Carol Vorderman and Nick Knowles. Designer Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen and his wife Jackie, who live nearby are among the many supporters whose generosity she constantly extols.