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Short Stuff: Camberley Kate · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and it's us, but we're joined by a
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: third person today in spirit. Her name is Camberly Kate,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: and she seems like a pretty boss person.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she sure was.
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  Speaker 3: If you found yourself in Camberly, England, which is about
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: thirty five miles southwest of London.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: In Surrey, that's right.
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  Speaker 3: If you found yourself there, and let's say the mid
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: nineteen seventies, you might have seen causing a traffic jam
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: in town. Beret wearing, gray haired senior citizen with a
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: handmade push cart with Ward stray dogs painted on the
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: side of it. And then some dogs in that cart
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  Speaker 3: riding along, and maybe another, I don't know, fifteen or
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: twenty dogs, some on leashes, some not on leashes, but
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  Speaker 3: very good boys and girls walking along with this, you know,
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: for lack of a better word, crazy dog lady in
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: the best way.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, crazy dog lady. Your name was Kate Ward. And
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: the reason she was a crazy dog lady, in addition
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: to walking all these dogs around, is that all of
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  Speaker 1: these dogs were hers. She wasn't like helping out a
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  Speaker 1: friend by taking these dogs on a walk. She had
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  Speaker 1: taken in all these dogs because they were all strays,
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  Speaker 1: they're about to be put down, they had been abandoned,
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  Speaker 1: and she took them in as her own. And what's
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: really cool about this too, is she took really good
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  Speaker 1: care of them. This wasn't like a situation where she
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  Speaker 1: was just collecting dogs and you know, whatever happened to
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: him happened to him. Like, she took excellent care of
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  Speaker 1: each one of these dogs. And over the course of
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  Speaker 1: her lifetime, actually over the course of just something like
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  Speaker 1: fifty years, I think she rescued hundreds of dogs and
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: kept them in great health and gave them great lives.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's amazing. It was more like like thirty something years.
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  Speaker 3: Oh really, Yeah, that's a lot of dogs. And apparently
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: here's you know, the little secret is apparently there were
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: hundreds of cats. I couldn't find a lot of evidence
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: of that, but I did read a couple of articles
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  Speaker 3: where they said, you know that no one ever talks
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: about the cats, but there were just as many cats
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  Speaker 3: over the years. So you know, one of England's first,
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  Speaker 3: probably the first en mass dog rescue person. You know,
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  Speaker 3: from what I read, people would of course taken a
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: stray here and there and that kind of thing, But
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  Speaker 3: there weren't these big dog rescue organizations. People would like
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  Speaker 3: either abandon a pet's very sadly or just drop it
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: off at the vet, or drop it off at the
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: front door of the police station. And that's where she
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  Speaker 3: sourced them. She got dogs and cats from police stations,
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: from veterinarians out on the streets, just randomly. And it
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  Speaker 3: all started with this greyhound at the very beginning, I
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  Speaker 3: think in nineteen forty three, she had bought a cottage.
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: It was her first house. And then she said, went
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: up the road on the doorstep of the vet. Someone
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: had abandoned this little lame, skinny greyhound that was set
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  Speaker 3: to be put to sleep. And she was like, no, no, no,
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  Speaker 3: that's coming with me.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah the vet I heard is very dramatic. The vet
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  Speaker 1: had the axe in the air in the mid swing
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  Speaker 1: when she stopped him and said, no, no, I'll take this
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  Speaker 1: little greyhound in. That became, from what I can tell,
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  Speaker 1: her first dog at the very least of her adult life,
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  Speaker 1: and she and the dog. Did you see the little
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  Speaker 1: doggie's name? I couldn't find it anywhere.
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  Speaker 2: No, I couldn't find the greyhounds name.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, but this is her first dog. We'll call him Primo.
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  Speaker 1: And she and Primo were like inseparable for eight over
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  Speaker 1: eight years, like they were just the best of friends.
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  Speaker 1: And then sadly, as things happened Primo died, she gave
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: him an extra eight plus years of great life. He
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: had a new best friend. So his passing was sad
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  Speaker 1: in and of itself, but it wasn't as sad as
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  Speaker 1: if he had been put down for being lame eight
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  Speaker 1: years earlier.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. And she said, and you know, how
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: did this come from? This great BBC interview from the
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  Speaker 3: mid seventies. You can watch on YouTube if you want
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  Speaker 3: to hear Kate in her cantankerous ways, kind of spill
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  Speaker 3: this story out. But she said that at the time
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  Speaker 3: everyone kind of thought like, well, that's it. You know,
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  Speaker 3: no one's gonna like this woman isn't going to get
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  Speaker 3: another dog.
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  Speaker 2: And she was like, that was just the start.
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  Speaker 3: And at this point, it was five hundred dogs by
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  Speaker 3: the time of this interview, and then I think four
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  Speaker 3: years later that had grown to six hundred by the end.
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  Speaker 1: Nuts, man, it's so great too. I say, we take
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: a little break and come back and talk a little
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: more about Kimberly Kate and her saga.
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  Speaker 4: Let's do it, okay, Chucks.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: At some point back there, you had said that she
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  Speaker 1: sourced her dogs from different places, and I couldn't help
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  Speaker 1: in my mind think that it sounded like she was
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: running a farm to table operation out of her house. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that's not at all what she was doing. She was
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  Speaker 1: doing the opposite of that. She's not eating dogs. She
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  Speaker 1: was taking really good care of them, as we said.
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  Speaker 1: And one of the really crazy things about this, or
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  Speaker 1: neat things about this, is she could rattle off the
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  Speaker 1: names of all the dogs she'd ever taken care of. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: she's being interviewed at age eighty, and she's not only
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  Speaker 1: rattling off their names like Patch and Daddy, she's also
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  Speaker 1: talking about where she got each one or how she
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  Speaker 1: found each one too. So it's quite obvious that each
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  Speaker 1: one of these dogs that she took in and would
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  Speaker 1: have dozens at a time, meant something very important to her.
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  Speaker 1: Each one.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah for sure.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, just to be able to remember six hundred
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  Speaker 3: things at that age is pretty remarkable, Yeah for sure.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: You know, and you know she couldn't do this without help.
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  Speaker 3: It seems like there were townspeople who would donate money
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  Speaker 3: for food, although one of them was keen to point
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: out that like, she never took anything for herself even
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: when people tried to help her out. Yeah, she didn't
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  Speaker 3: have a whole lot of money, but she did have
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  Speaker 3: the help of a local vet, a guy named Jeffrey Craddock,
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  Speaker 3: who did pro bono care for her dogs. And he's
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  Speaker 3: interviewed and basically was like, these are some of the
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  Speaker 3: healthiest dogs I've come across.
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  Speaker 2: He said.
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  Speaker 3: They seemed to live a little longer than most, an
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  Speaker 3: average of about sixteen years, and they're in better shape
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  Speaker 3: than the average dog. She feeds them well, he said,
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  Speaker 3: but like not too much, he said, none of them
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  Speaker 3: are overweight, and they're all very well behaved because you know,
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  Speaker 3: as you see on these dog walks, like a lot
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  Speaker 3: of them even aren't on leash. And in fact, she
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: battled a leash law that came around at one point
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: that I don't think was necessarily targeting her, but would
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: have affected her.
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  Speaker 1: No, that's the other reason why people remember her. In
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  Speaker 1: addition to being mentioned in Sir Arthur's Personal History of
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: twentieth century England called the Lion and the Unicorn. He
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: gave her that nickname in the book. One of the
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: reasons she became kind of a legend in addition to
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: being the first like basically solo animal rescue person, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: was that she had quite a personality in.
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: And of it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Like she was known to be rather vocal and defensive,
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  Speaker 1: and anytime somebody threatened her dogs with putting them on
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  Speaker 1: a leash or taking them away from her something, she'd
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  Speaker 1: let them know in no uncertain terms that they were
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  Speaker 1: not going to do that.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: I think it's interesting, like she didn't seem personality plus,
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  Speaker 3: but kind of in a lovable way because she's like,
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  Speaker 3: don't screw with my dogs.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Apparently she would, you know, the cars would honk at
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  Speaker 3: her and stuff because she would cause like, you know,
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  Speaker 3: a bit of a traffic jam at times when she
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  Speaker 3: has all these dogs on these walks and she would
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  Speaker 3: ram that cart into the cars and not be too
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  Speaker 3: nice sometimes, and was not nice to the city council.
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  Speaker 3: Like I said, with that leash law, It's not like
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  Speaker 3: she went in there with hat in hand. She even
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: petitioned the royal family at times, right.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, apparently she would regularly write to them and I
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  Speaker 1: don't know that they ever wrote back, but there was
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  Speaker 1: an incident where a teacher said publicly that they saw
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Kate beating one of her dogs with a stick, and
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: she got so incensed about this and was so concerned,
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  Speaker 1: I guess about what people thought of how she was
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  Speaker 1: taking care of her dogs. She wrote to King George
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  Speaker 1: the sixth, Queen Elizabeth's father and said like that did
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  Speaker 1: not happen. Unequivocally, that didn't happen, nor would it ever happen.
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  Speaker 1: So she would appeal to them too if the city
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  Speaker 1: council wasn't behaving. And I don't know what effect it has,
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  Speaker 1: but it's definitely worth mentioning.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, apparently she even sent Queen Elizabeth when she got married,
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  Speaker 3: well before she's queen, I guess in November nineteen forty seven,
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  Speaker 3: and it says that one of the dogs sent a
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  Speaker 3: wedding gift a dog leash to those corgies that Queen
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  Speaker 3: Elizabeth loved. So that's pretty cute, you know. She she
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: lived on a pension. Not a lot is known about
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  Speaker 3: her early life. I think I found that she was
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  Speaker 3: sadly both her parents had died when she was a
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  Speaker 3: young age and was raised by her aunt and kind
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  Speaker 3: of worked as a when she became a teenager, worked
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  Speaker 3: as a housemaid at various places and institutions, and apparently
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: it was pretty religious, because she did say that, you know,
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  Speaker 3: capital h him, these animals belonged to him, and that
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  Speaker 3: I'm just sort of caring for them, you know, the
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  Speaker 3: best I can.
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  Speaker 1: I'm just cleaning up their poop exactly. She Yeah, you
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  Speaker 1: mentioned that, and I think it's worth pointing out again
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  Speaker 1: she was not wealthy. She was living off a pension
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: from the government from what I can tell, Like you said,
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  Speaker 1: she'd been a housemaid here there, and I don't know
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  Speaker 1: that she was occupied much after that. Once she bought
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  Speaker 1: her house for six hundred pounds. By the way, but
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: there's a this is from a House of Works article,
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  Speaker 1: and there is a person named Heather drisk gold Woodford
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: who curates a Facebook page to Kate Camberly Kate and
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  Speaker 1: has a lot of information about her, but basically points
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: out that Kate was like the forerunner to the people
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  Speaker 1: who are rescuing dogs today, and like you said before,
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  Speaker 1: like this just did not happen. People just abandoned dogs.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Maybe you would take as stray and like you said,
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  Speaker 1: I think, but she just came out of nowhere and
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: made such an impact and became so memorable that she
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: inspired other people to do the same, not nearly to
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: the degree that she did, Like there's very few animal
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: rescue people with a couple dozen dogs at any given time,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: but or let alone, not just fostering them, keeping them
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: for the rest of their lives. But she definitely inspired
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: people in that respect for sure.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, very sadly she passed.
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: I guess she was about eighty four because this was
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: in nineteen seventy nine. She had a series of strokes
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: in the BBC she was eighty and seventy five. So
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: a nice, full life, saved a lot of dogs and cats.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: So we salute Kamberly Kate.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Yes, we take our berets off to her. And short
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: stuff is.
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• 11:13
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