Life on the Line: The Heroic Life of Vicki Moore Paperback – 1 Oct. 2007

I bought this as a gift and they were very happy. I also borrowed it and read it myself with great interest.

This is the story of an ordinary woman who did extraordinary things. But Vicki Moore was no ordinary woman. With her equally dedicated husband Tony, Vicki devoted her life to the fight against cruelty to animals. To expose the suffering and torture inflicted on animals in the name of entertainment and for profit became their joint mission.It could be a dangerous undertaking especially when filming the Blood Fiestas in Spain. Then they faced angry spectators, participants, and organisers enjoying and seeing nothing wrong in the age-old custom of goading, decapitating and mutilating defenceless creatures. Dangerous and, in one tragic accident, life-threastening.That Vicki survived the eleven horn-wounds inflicted on her when Argentino, the bull, maddened by torture, chased and tossed her seems almost miraculous. She was nearly killed but her reaction? She came to feel 'great love and pity for the bull that attacked me... I was the victim in this case, the animals are the victims every day'.Vicki gave a voice to those suffering creatures who have no power to speak for themselves, whose silent pleas for mercy fall on deafened ears. Hers was the voice of civilisation, of warning that all who rejoice in degrading and humiliating innocent animal victims become themselves degraded and depraved.This is not a book for the squeamish. Vicki's filmed and documented testimony of torture makes for horrifying, sickening and deeply saddening reading.Vicki's crusade went on right up to her death from cancer when she wasw 44. And the fight agaist cruely continues wherever people feel compassion.Vicki's life was driven by compassion, heroic in its inspiration. Her legacy lies in that same inspiration, in the power to touch hearts, to translate pity into action.Vicki's actions made a difference.Her voice has not been stilled.