Peter Gurney's project
with the Dr. Hadwyn Trust
Posted to the GPDD, July 11, 2006
I work for the Dr Hadwen Trust (one of the charities Peter
Gurney
supported). We fund medical research without the use of
animals. My area is to compile and research our mail order
catalogue. I wanted to say thank you to all of you who have
show an interest in our charity's website as a tribute to
Peter Gurney.
I though you may like to know of my connection with him
shortly before he died. For our forthcoming mail order catalogue
we are offering pewter guinea pig asthma lapels sold in
aid of our asthma research project. Sadly, standard research
usually uses guinea pigs for this type of research.
We emailed Peter and asked him if he would like to give
a message of support for the guinea pig lapels, and he kindly
approved a quote in June. I had long wanted to connect Peter
Gurney to the Trust because his endorsement of our work
meant so much to me. I respect so much how he has furthered
the public's knowledge of guinea pig welfare and given us
all a much better understanding of guinea pigs health. Nearly
every sentence I utter about my guinea pigs begins 'Peter
Gurney says..' because as far as I am concerned what Peter
Gurney didn't know about guinea pigs wasn't worth knowing.
Peter's quote for our guinea pig asthma lapels is to be
included in our forthcoming fund-raising catalogue with
a small note about Peter's sad passing and his belief in
our work.
Before that, Peter Gurney had been emailing the general
secretary of the Trust and sent some great images of his
pigs that he'd taken (some with bongos and other musical
instruments!). They discussed their shared love of jazz
and he knew immediately why I had named my guinea pigs BG
and Artie (after jazz clarinetists Benny Goodman and Artie
Shaw). We even asked him about BG's watery eye and he kindly
gave some suggestions for that.
I think what I most like about Peter is that he never made
himself
inaccessible. He wanted as many people as possible to learn
about how truy wonderful guinea pigs are and how best to
care for them, and if you asked him for advice, he was never
too busy to give it.
I am very proud that Peter will be in our new catalogue.
In his books and sound advice he left a great legacy for
guinea pig lovers the world over.
Thank you again to all of you who have taken a look at
our website. It's very kind of you.
Kind regards,
Carole Welsey
Dr Hadwen trust
http://www.drhadwentrust.org.uk
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