Description
Winner – People’s Book Prize 2021 Non-Fiction
Just Gill: The Story of Gill Dalley, co-founder of Soi Dog Foundation, by John Dalley MBE & Donna Freelove
John and Gill Dalley travelled from their home in Britain on a dream holiday to a popular holiday resort in Thailand. They did not know that they would become involved in the tragic tale of a street dog called Naga. This fateful meeting led them to taking the life-changing decision to swap their lives in rural Yorkshire and embark on new adventures in Phuket. They dedicated themselves to campaigning against Asia’s dog meat trade and setting up the world-famous Soi Dog Foundation.
Life on this idyllic island proved only the beginning of a series of challenging life lessons for this “ordinary” couple as they faced their toughest years together.
This touching true story reveals the extraordinary experiences John and his beloved wife Gill shared from the day they first met to Gill‘s tragic death from cancer in 2017. The book includes joint memories from Gill‘s diary and personal reminiscences from SDF UK President Donna Freelove.
This extraordinary story of an extraordinary woman, the legacy Gill Dalley left for the street dogs and cats of Thailand, will inspire animal lovers worldwide.
Soi dog and Victorina Press.
Soi Dog Official Website.
The Author
John Dalley
John Dalley is a founding member of the registered charity and non-profit organisation Soi Dog Foundation, together with his late wife Gill and Margot Homburg. The Foundation was set up in Phuket, Thailand in 2003, and is now officially registered in eight countries. John is President of Soi Dog International.
John, a former chemical plant manager from Leeds, and Gill, a former bank manager, retired to Phuket in 2003 with the aim of helping stray and abused dogs and cats in the province which they had come to love. Gill was the first non-Asian to be named Asian of the Year by CNA Singapore. The Dalleys also co-founded the Asia Canine Protection Alliance, which worked to end the illegal trading of canines for the dog meat industry from Thailand to Vietnam. They are recipients of awards for services to animal welfare including the prestigious Jeanne Marchig award in 2011. John assisted the government in the drafting of Thailand’s first animal welfare bill, which was passed in 2014, making the consumption of animals not considered livestock illegal, and introducing penalties for cruelty to animals.
In early 2017, Gill died after a short battle with cancer, but John continues to volunteer his services to ensure the legacy lives on. Currently, Soi Dog Foundation sterilises more dogs and cats than any other organisation in the world and treats thousands more each year at its facilities in Phuket and Bangkok.
Donna Freelove
Donna Freelove was born in Coventry and lived in surrounding Warwickshire villages for most of her young life. In 1984 she achieved BA (Hons) in Marketing & Level 5 Certificate in Management and Leadership from the CMI at Teeside University. Here, she fell in love with the north of England and vowed to live permanently there one day. She spent most of her career working with a Pan-European pharmaceutical company in marketing, and travelled extensively, both with work and for leisure, particularly in Asia. She retired early at 50 and moved to the Yorkshire coast where she extended her previous part-time voluntary work for Soi Dog Foundation to a more full-time basis and became UK President in 2017. Her inspiration for volunteering for SDF is based on the horrors of the Asian Dog Meat Trade, her admiration of co-founders John & Gill Dalley’s achievements, transparency & ethos, along with a sense of deep gratitude to them for saving and entrusting her with her own Soi Dog, Polo.
Consuelo Rivera-Fuentes –
Warts and All
Just Gill is the astonishing life of an ordinary Yorkshire lass who might have been ‘ordinary’ up until the day she found her mission in life. That mission at the beginning was to rescue and save dogs and cats from the appalling life they happened to have in the streets of Phuket in Thailand and later from the meat trade. The book is about Gill Dalley who, together with her husband John, co-founded Soi Dog. It is an extraordinarily moving auto/biography. When I say auto/biography it’s because the book contains autobiographical (unedited) excerpts taken from Gill’s personal diary combined with biographical writing from John Dalley and Donna Freelove. The editor clearly took a very soft approach and respected the style and structure of writing. Some might say that the latter is very ‘weird’ because we find that a dead person is speaking through John Dalley. But that is precisely why I like this book so much; I could feel Gill’s presence and her love for animals all the time. This is so much more than an auto/biography, it is also about overcoming disabilities despite the pain of wearing a prosthesis and learning to walk again. The book is also quite funny sometimes and as Gill wanted, it spills the beans and says warts and all. What I also liked a lot was the fact that there are plenty of colour photographs to take us into the world of this woman and the legacy she left after she passed away in 2017.