AS a butcher, Nora Baldwin made her livelihood out of animals - but following her death, she wanted to pay them back.So the 94-year-old horse enthusiast, from Rushmere St Andrew, renowned for her sense of humour, left almost all of her £1.

AS a butcher, Nora Baldwin made her livelihood out of animals - but following her death, she wanted to pay them back.

So the 94-year-old horse enthusiast, from Rushmere St Andrew, renowned for her sense of humour, left almost all of her £1.2m estate to animal charities.

The news has only just emerged following her death in December last year. Mrs Baldwin lived her last years alone after the death of her husband ten years ago.

A close friend said just over £1m was being divided equally between ten charities which directly help animals, including the RSPCA, the International League for the Protection of Horses and the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

Also included was the Leonard Woolf Charitable Trust. Mr Woolf, a semi-retired commercial flower and vegetable grower, was her friend for over 50 years after they met in Rushmere St Andrew.

He still owns land by Mrs Baldwin's former home and will use the bequest to turn it into a nature reserve, as they had discussed.

Mr Woolf said: “Nora said she had made all her livelihood out of animals, so wanted to pay them back through the animal charities getting the money.

“She also left a bit to relatives and friends, but over £1m will go to charities, which also includes the Sue Ryder Foundation, after they cared for her daughter towards the end of her terrible illness.”

Jude was the Baldwins' only child, and was an artistically talented woman who suffered from a rare incurable illness which affected her nervous system. She lived to 55, and spent her last three years in care at the Sue Ryder Foundation in Yorkshire.

Mr Woolf added: “She was a very keen horsewoman - you could say horse mad. She was a very friendly person, but just with those she liked. She was always having a laugh, right up to her final days.”

Mrs Baldwin was the eldest of three daughters to father Albert Juby, a butcher in Ipswich. She met her future husband, who she married at 19, while he was training in the profession at her father's shop. They then set up their own butcher's shop in Tacket Street, Ipswich.

She leaves two sisters, Mary Vincent and Ivy Bates.