‘I just wish they’d let me feed my cats’: how council ban made one woman an animal welfare icon

When Collette Boler was ordered to stop feeding a colony of feral cats in Thurnscoe, other animal lovers stepped in “Two ladies from York have just been in,” said Collette Boler at the till of her small cafe in Thurnscoe, near Barnsley. Her voice began to choke up. “They came in with a box of chocolates and a card, a box of cat food, a bag of cat biscuits and just said ‘carry on doing what you’re doing, you’re absolutely fabulous’. And a man’s just given me a tenner for cat food. It’s been in...

By Robyn Vinter, North of England correspondent