The Yorkshire Vet: A Donkey For Christmas: Starstruck Yorkshire vet Peter Wright bonds with York actress Dame Judi Dench over healing power of donkeys in Channel 5 Christmas episode
The Yorkshire Vet star Peter Wright was starstruck when he met four-time BAFTA winner Dame Judi Dench during the filming for the Channel 5 Christmas special episode and they bonded over their love of donkeys.
A Christmas episode of The Yorkshire Vet will show Peter Wright travel the country to Devon where he will meet unsung heroes at Donkey Sanctuary, a welfare charity that was founded in 2009 by Elisabeth Svendsen, and the international star Dame Judi Dench, who was born and bred in York.
The charity rescues donkeys that have been abused, neglected across the country and at governmental levels all over the world. Those who are unsuitable for adoption remain at the centre and are taken care of.
During the pandemic in 2020, the charity rescued more than 80 donkeys from a farm in Wales, the mission was named Operation Dawn.
“They were kept in absolutely filthy conditions, their coats were matted with their own excrement,” Peter told The Yorkshire Post.
“It was a huge undertaking for the Donkey Sanctuary to take these donkeys down to Devon, and start to rehabilitate them physically and mentally.
“We’ve tried to show that the Donkey Sanctuary is really good and they have so many different teams there.
“For instance, there’s a huge veterinary department, where there are about eleven vets working there.
“They have really good facilities there, a state-of-the-art operating theater, which was opened fairly recently and a dental suite.
“You will see the transformation in these donkeys’ lives and how they end up with people who really appreciate them. It was great to see.”
A highlight of the filming for Peter, who is an ambassador for the Donkey Sanctuary, was meeting the global superstar and a lover of donkeys Dame Judi Dench, who is an ambassador for Flicka Foundation, based in South Cornwall.
“I was busy filming with these two donkeys, Frieda and Finty,” he said.
“When Dame Judi arrived, she could see I was busy filming, she wasn’t interested in me quite rightly - she made a beeline for the donkeys.
“Particularly one called Lolita she had adopted, it’s a large, what we call a Poitou donkey. The big French donkeys.
“I could see as I was busy filming, that Dame Judy was holding court with these donkeys in one of the paddocks. It was lovely to see, really, because you could see that the love and care was genuine.
“I was nervous to meet a superstar, I mean, she's a global superstar, so I was slightly apprehensive; this woman who has literally done anything and everything in theater and television.
“I needn't have been at all worried, really, because she was a lovely person. She has a genuine love of donkeys.”
Peter made a gesture to break the ice with the Yorkshire born and bred multi-award winning actor.
“I thought, what do I do? Will I get tongue-tied when I’m speaking to her, how will I manage?
“Dame Judi was born in York, so I took a Yorkshire Rose badge and I thought she’ll probably just dismiss it and put it in her pocket but she didn’t, she put it on her lapel and she said, ‘I will treasure that’. I could tell she meant it, it meant something to her and I think that broke the ice.
“We talked about what wonderful creatures donkeys are and they are because they have this empathy about them in that they can pick up what mood you are in, whether you're in a very happy, joyful mood.
“If you are down in the dumps, if you're feeling depressed and miserable, they pick up on that as well.
“This is why they are such wonderful creatures, certainly people who are struggling with their health, particularly with their mental health.
“At the Donkey Sanctuary they have this thing called donkey assisted activities where people who are feeling a bit fed up and down can go and bond with the donkey. You can see the transformation in people. I’ve seen this many times.”
Peter and Dame Judi bonded over their love of donkeys and had an enjoyable time, they ended up swapping contact details.
“When you look at her Wikipedia page it would be easier and quicker to say what she hasn’t done rather than what she has done and she has a wicked sense of humour, it’s very sharp. Her eyesight is failing but certainly her mind is not,” he said.
“I said to her, how do you remember this stuff? If I had two lines to remember I’d probably make a complete mess of it.
“She said even now I could recite Hamlet from start to finish and she started to do so. I thought this was just phenomenal.
“I recited the Yorkshire saying: ‘see all, hear all, say nowt; eat all, sip all, pay nowt’. She never heard it before and then she immediately slipped into a perfect North Yorkshire dialect to mimic me; I found it hilarious to be honest, we had a really good laugh. It’s a day I won’t forget.
“What made me feel ten feet tall was when she said, stay in touch and she wanted my contact details and I thought how lovely, a Dame of the realm wanting a ratty vet from North Yorkshire’s contact details. I thought that was just fantastic.”
Peter also shared some tips for people who are interested in adopting a donkey.
“It isn’t something to be undertaken lightly and the first thing I would do is contact the Donkey Sanctuary to discuss it,” he said.
“They need a little bit of land, not a vast amount of land, they need shelter, they need a hard standing.
“There’s what we call donkey welfare advisors in all areas of the country and they will chat through things with you as well.
“It’s something that you’ve got to want to do, you’ve got to want to be obviously enthusiastic about it.
“It sounds a bit corny, but any sort of love and care that you give to donkeys that love is repaid tenfold because of the bonding you get with them.”
Channel 5 will be The Yorkshire Vet: A Donkey For Christmas on Tuesday, December 17, 2024 at 8pm.