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Foreword
By Virginia McKenna
(the actress who played the role of Joy in Born Free)
Hundreds of hundreds of people visited George Adamson's camp
at Kora during the nineteen years that he lived there. Hundreds
and hundreds of words have been written about him. But it seems
that there is always something new to say, each person finding
a new dimension to the experience--perhaps because to each person
the visit was intensely personal.
Gareth's discovery of George's world, through reading his book,
Bwana Game, as a young boy, led him inexorably to their
meeting just over twelve years later in 1988. The old man's passion
for lioness and his deep understanding of their nature was reflected
n the young man's own perception of the king of beasts. Both respected
the lion's character and its place in nature's hierarchy. Both
wished to share their lives with this predator. Both have had
their wish fulfilled.
Although Gareth knew George for only a few months, their deep
and mutual concern for the wilderness of Kora and the creatures
and plant life it contained, and their extraordinary rapport with
lions, established a spiritual bond which continues today, two
years after George's brutal murder.
On George's death the three young lions at Kora which he was
rehabilitating back to the wild were suddenly left without the
"teacher." Their father figure. For Gareth there was
now only one path to tread--a path he would share with his new
"family"--though not, sadly, in the wilds of Kora, where
George's other lions still haunt the river bank and move silently
through the sea of thorn trees.
George's body may be buried at Kampi ya Simba but his
spirit is everywhere, touching all of us who knew him--whether
through his books or in person. And guiding and inspiring Gareth
as he, in his turn, dedicates his life to lions--and to protecting
animals and their future in the wild.
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