Abergavenny's very own Dr Doolittle is still talking to the animals even in retirement.

For Mary Woolley, who will be 67 in January, takes care of Minnie, Tillie, Sally, Snowdrop, Molly, Barley, Daisy, Violet, Tulip and Freddy.

Her woolly friends are sheep who live a pampered life on a small-holding where they greet Mary enthusiastically by running towards her with a chorus of excited baa-ing as soon as her 4x4 comes into sight.

"They always answer to their names," says their proud owner, born in Llantwit Major during the war, and now living in Gwent Road, Mardy, from where she drives each day to feed her family.

Even meal times are conducted in an orderly fashion, with Tulip getting first choice at the sheep nuts, followed by Barley and then the rest of the flock who had been waiting patiently for their turn at the trough.

Mary began tending her sheep nearly ten years ago when she and husband Willoughby, who sadly died aged 70 in 2003, had two day-old lambs.

"With sheep there is always something to do, and that is what we wanted," says Mary, who married Willoughby (also known as Bill or Will) in 1991. He was a former senior nursing officer at Penyfal and Maindiff hospitals, while Mary was a hospital administrator in Powys Health Authority.

"Our sheep are like babies. I spoil them rotten. At one time, when I opened the back door, Daisy and Violet would come into the house."

She still displays a framed photograph of Willoughby sitting in an armchair with a sheep on his lap.

The life with animals began with Sally and Tilly, who were introduced to Freddy the ram, and other little lambs came along.

Nowadays, she can no longer spare the time away from her beloved Animal Farm friends to go on holidays, with only the odd trip into Abergavenny and to work as a WRVS volunteer at Nevill Hall Hospital to break the feeding routine.

"I shall keep them until the day I die," says Mary. "I could not part with them. They will not mix with other sheep, so I have to look after them."

The woman who talks to the animals, just like Dr Doolittle, also feeds a family of hedgehogs every night, before putting them to bed.