Fantasy novelist Sir Terry Pratchett visited East Huntspill’s Secret World wildlife rescue centre on Friday afternoon (May 20th) to open a new bird hospital.
A formal ribbon-cutting ceremony was held to mark the official opening, as pictured here.
Sir Terry performed the opening, assisted by the family and friends of Jasmine Clare, a little girl who died of meningitis last year and was a regular visitor to Secret World.
The well-known children’s author said he was “delighted and honoured” to be asked to open the hospital and was also joined by Burnham-On-Sea Mayor, Michael Clarke.
With the number of orphaned and injured birds increasing yearly it was recently decided that a specialist bird room is needed to accommodate the animals.
A special appeal to raise funds for the bird room to be built was launched last Spring and it is already being put to good use with lots of baby birds making good use of the facilities.
The late Jasmine Clare was described by her parents as ‘our little angel’ and donations from the event were shared between Secret World and Meningitis UK in her memory.
Secret World founder Pauline Kidner told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “We have named the bird room after Jasmine as this will see birds taking to the wing on their second chance to the wild.”
Sir Terry became involved with Secret World after the swan shootings in February of this year when he donated £10,000 to catch the killer.
Secret World’s next open weekend has a themed of ‘wildlife babies’ and doors open from 10am- 4pm on Saturday 28th, Sunday 29th and Monday 30th May.
