When Celia Hammond was given an ultimatum to choose between her career or her love of animals it was an easy choice for her.
Fast forward half a century and the now 80-year-old has undoubtedly saved the lives of hundreds and thousands of cats, dogs and other creatures great and small.
But she now faces a new more brutal challenge - her charity's fight for survival.
The pandemic has stripped bare the Celia Hammond Trust of any financial stability.
Celia's charity isn't as widely known as the bigger animal charities like the RSPCA and PDSA.
But her dedication and achievements have been acknowledged as Celia has won a string of accolades including The Mirror's Pride of Britain award in 2003 and The Mirror's Animal Hero Awards in 2015.
Celia told the Mirror that while her charity is relatively unknown their share of the workload to help injured, rescued and abandoned animals is disproportionally high and the lockdown has made this even worse.
"It has been terrible for animal charities. Everyone is hurting financially," she said.
"Animals were starving because the restaurants were shut so there was no food.
"I don't think people realised how much animals were struggling during the lockdown as some animals became very injured.
"There are a lot of people who are trying to contact other charities to get help and now the RSPCA's animal hospital in Putney has closed down people are turning to us.
"So people living in the areas that the hospital served now have nothing.
"We don't have the name of the big charities but we sure have a big workload."
Celia had a passion for looking after animals since she was very young before she attended Lucie Clayton College - a modelling school which boasts former model turned actress Joanna Lumley and Jean Shrimpton as Celia's contemporaries.
After graduating, Celia caught the eye of the renowned photographer Norman Parkinson and she was catapulted to fame as a model during the swinging 60s where she strutted down catwalks.
"I was a model for 10 years but I never liked the catwalks," Celia said.
"I did it for a year and I hated it."
One day Celia was returning to the flat she shared with several other young women in West Hampstead, London, when she spotted a cat sitting at the window inside a derelict house.
This cat would unknowingly change Celia's life for ever.
She said: "I went back to the house with a girl I was flat-sharing with and we found the cat with her kittens and some had starved to death. The mum was so skinny so we rescued her.
"As we were leaving the building we saw a woman feeding another cat so I gave her my number in case she needed me.
"That woman give my number to someone else and they passed my number on and before I knew it people were calling me from all over London asking me to help with cat rescues."
Celia found herself being called to so many rescues that she was cancelling modelling jobs to do them - a move that angered her agent.
"My agent told me I have to concentrate on one thing modelling or animals so I gave up my job," she said.
"I moved to Kent and was driving to London four or five times a week to rescue cats before taking them to a private vet who was absolutely brilliant and would neuter them for £3 each."
Despite the low cost Celia said her vet bills began to mount up.
She said: "Cats were having lots of kittens that nobody wanted so half of them ended up out on the street.
"I did all my work through the generous vet, but it became glaring obvious that we were never going to get on top of this stray animals problem until people could afford to get their pets neutered.
"You won't see any improvement until the number of unwanted kittens being born was tackled.
"I opened my first clinic in 1995 and we have saved hundreds and thousands of animals since then."
Celia now runs two clinics in London, which treat cats and dogs, and a sanctuary near Hastings, East Sussex.
But during the lockdown Celia was forced to scale back the treatment she offered and concentrate on rescues only which meant many animals unable to be neutered.
She said: "We did a lot of emergency work with strays and injured animals during he lockdown because we were allowed to but we couldn't do anything routine.
"This means we are playing catch up with neutering animals.
"It has been an incredibly difficult 18 months."
Rocketing private vet fees, the closure of the RSPCA-owned animal hospital in southwest London and the lockdown has proven to be an unwelcome recipe for Celia's charity as more and more desperate pet owners turn to her for help.
"Things have changed in the last thee or four years since so many private practices were bought out by corporate companies which charge huge fees," she said.
"Something that would normally be quoted for thousands of pounds privately we do for a fraction of the price but there's only so much we can do because we are one small charity which is funded privately.
"Even our supporters are struggling and because we're not incredibly well known we're not in a great financial position.
"We do get some legacies but nothing like the bigger charities.
"Yet more and more owners of sick pets are desperately looking for somewhere that they can get help so they come to us."
Celia said despite the eye-watering prices for treatment in the private vet industry there is actually a shortage of practitioners due to Brexit.
"A lot have gone back to eastern Europe and a lot are doing locum work as as you get more money.
"We get so many stray cats with fractures as they fall off balconies and we are referred to by private vets because they are so expensive.
"We have a lot of cats referred to us as they have a blocked bladder which would cost £1,500 - £2,000 to treat privately. We charge £350 and that includes the cat staying in a clinic for three days and we typically treat 10 cats a week.
"Something needs to happen as people are now saying they won't have pets because vets are so expensive. Pet insurance is expensive and it often won't cover the things people need to claim for.
"A lot are being referred to us and we are doing what we can but it's incredibly difficult at this level as we don't have the money.
"When people come to us and we help them they say if it wasn't for us they couldn't afford to keep pets and we can't cover the whole country as we are just a small charity.
"We try and price the treatment to cover our costs but people just don't have the money.
"We don't have the money to provide the extensive service we used to do and we don't want to be in a position where we turn animals away but what are we to do?"
To make a donation or for more information about the work Celia does visit celiahammond.org
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