A Lion's Heart

If you thought the 60s were a little insane, you’ll think they were stark raving mad. Who buys a lion cub from a store down the road? But it did happen and John Rendell and Anthony Bourke, brought home their new pet to their King’s Road apartment in London, after they found the him up for sale at Harrods Departmental Store (1969).

Their story with Christian, the Lion, doesn’t end only with taking him for drives in the backseat of their car or playing in a Church graveyard or perhaps even going out for some ice cream together; the truly touching part of the story begins when the two men realise within a year that London was too small and too concrete to live happily with a growing Lion. With the help of George Adamson (if you’ve seen Born Free, it was based on him), a wildlife conservationist in Kenya, they were able to reintroduce Christian into the wild. He was flown there, across continents and John and Anthony were separated from him for a year before they decided to pay him a visit. Over that year, Christian had grown into an adult beautiful Lion, and his proud human parents were overjoyed to hear that Christian had become the leader of his Pride.

One needs to watch the documentary to see how beautiful their reunion was. Without paying heed to warnings that a year apart meant that things would change, John and Anthony went ahead to the Reserve. If you own a dog, you know exactly what it feels like to come home to find him doing nothing else but waiting for you, the most honest and heart-felt emotion that a living thing can express is when your dog shows how glad he is that you came back. You might not believe it, but that is exactly what Christian did, he jumped on them like a dog would jump on his Master, hugging them with his massive paws. He even introduced them to his wife! 

This is one of those stories that make your day and if you are an animal lover it might make you teary. Christian, the Lion only reinstated my complete faith in animals and how honest and unprejudiced their affections are.  Their story might make you want to watch Madagascar again and cry yourself to sleep, cursing the government for making it illegal to walk down the road and pick up an exotic animal from the zoo.