Peer review

Two lords and one lady share their most enjoyable experiences abroad with Eleanor Doughty

- Eleanor Doughty

Lord Monson on Kenya

ON the King’s Road in the 1970s, there lived a lion cub called Christian, who had been bought from Harrods by a chap called John Rendall and his friend Anthony “Ace” Bourke. He lived in their furniture shop in Chelsea and Rendall drove him around in an open-top car. Rendall and Ace had decided that, for him to have a good life, he ought to be taken back to Kenya and rehabilitated into the wild by George and Joy Adamson of Born Free. I went there in the 1980s and tried to find him.

‘I flew up to the reserve, near the Somali border. It was quite dangerous—the Somalis had attempted to kill George. We went to find Christian, George and I, in a Land Rover and, suddenly, he stopped the car. On a huge rock was a lioness, holding her head in a very noble way, looking at us disdainfully. George knew this lioness, Greta, and pulled out a bit of rotting camel meat. The smell was so awful I almost fell out of the car. George flung the meat and, in one bound, Greta was 10ft away. I thought: this is it. George hit the ground with a stick and she snatched the camel meat and left me alone. And that’s how George Adamson saved my life. We never did find Christian.

‘On the same trip, I was on a pedalo on Lake Naivasha in Nakuru County with my future wife. There were flamingos everywhere and it was so pretty—lovely colonial houses. It’s an idyll. But then, the pedalo stopped moving, stuck in weeds. We were alone, so I thought I’d jump in and sort it out. Suddenly, the head of a hippopotamus popped up. I thought: ‘Just smile and carry on doing what you’re doing.’ Somehow, I knew it had no hostile intent. Slowly, I pushed myself back on to the pedalo.