The Daily Mail – She is known for her charm, sleek good looks and slightly feline demeanour. So it should be little surprise that Joanna Lumley has had a lifelong love of cats that has inspired her to make a new two-part ITV documentary.
The Absolutely Fabulous actress has travelled the world to film Joanna Lumley: Catwoman, which explores modern man’s relationship with cats, both domestic and wild.
Her own passion for the creatures began as a child in what was then Malaya, when she rescued a drowning kitten from a well.
‘It was all pretty dramatic,’ Joanna explains.
‘I had gone out for a walk with my mother and our dog Judy, who was being held on a long lead because there was a rabies scare. We walked past a well and my mother heard the most pitiful mewing so we stopped and had a look inside.
‘There was a tiny kitten swimming around, obviously the last of a litter that had been thrown in to drown. My mother lowered the long lead down, the kitten grabbed on to it and we pulled him out.
‘Then we took him home – my mother loved all animals indiscriminately, snakes, spiders and lizards, not just cats and dogs, so it was entirely natural to her to save a kitten someone had wanted to murder.
‘And we knew my father, a major in the 6th Gurkha Rifles, wouldn’t mind because he’d rescued our dog as a stray from the officers’ mess one Christmas Eve.’
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