Christian the lion - Bloody hell...

I only heard about this the other day (oh well, only 30 years late).

The story goes...

"In 1969 a young Australian, John Rendall and his friend Ace Bourke, bought a small lion cub from Harrods pet department, which was then legal. 'Christian' was kept in the basement of a furniture shop on the Kings Road in Chelsea, the heart of the swinging sixties. Loved by all, the affectionate cub ate in a local restaurant, played in a nearby graveyard, but was growing fast...

A chance encounter with Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna (Of the Born Free Foundation) led to a new life for Christian. He came to live in a huge enclosure and to sleep in a caravan at their Surrey home. Then in 1971 he was flown to Kenya, his ancestral home, and returned to the wild by lion-man George Adamson. Nine months later in 1972, John and Ace returned to Kora in Kenya. This clip is of their reunion at that time."

It was touch and go that he was going to recognise them for a while.

For me, if to bloody Aussies kept me in the basement of a shop in West London, I'd have bitten their heads clean off. But just because they're Australian.