The Born Free Legacy

'50 years ago, a landmark book was published - Born Free.

'It told how the Adamsons - Austrian artist and British game warden -

'brought up an orphaned lion cub and released her

'back into the wilds of Kenya.'

There are many stories about people and wild animals.

But never quite like this one.

'The book became an international best seller, selling millions,

'and was given the Hollywood treatment.

'It changed a generation's attitude towards wildlife

'and turned the Adamsons into one of the first conservation superstars.'

Joy Adamson and her book were probably the first time

that there was a major shift of opinion.

'Alongside, lay a different story that didn't have a happy ending.

'Of life in a beautiful but harsh landscape

'alongside violent animals and a constant threat of murderous bandits

'that ended with Joy and George being killed.'

The shot that killed him was when they were firing at him from behind.

'The Adamsons' story is held up as a symbol

'of how humans can live alongside wild animals.

'But it continues to fiercely divide opinion.'

There will always be people who want fairy stories.

The natural world is more complex.

-NEWSREEL:

-'Africa! Bloody, primitive, lustful.

'Still ruled by fang and claw,

'tawny kings of slaughter.'

'Before Born Free was published,

'Europeans had a very particular view of Africa -

'the dark continent, inhabited by exotic dangerous animals,

'where only the brave dared to go.'

Either you shot big game, regarded as being honourable,

adventurous, noble and manly

and, if you could, get a record with the longest horns

or the heaviest weight.

Or you went in with lassoes and captured things,

and brought them back to show them as monsters of the jungle.

When I was a child, I'd go to the cinema

and see animal films, always films about

animals being shot by very brave big game hunters

mowing down an elephant.

I found this disgusting, but people seemed to find it thrilling.

'This one-dimensional image of wildlife was painted

'while Kenya was still part of the British Empire.

'George and Joy were mavericks in this world,

'where wild animals were just a commodity.

'The book Joy was about to write would overturn

'conventional attitudes to "savage beasts",

'insisting that you could have a meaningful relationship with them.

'The Born Free story started in 1942 when George and Joy met at a party

'on the Tana River in northern Kenya.

'Joy was with her husband, Peter Bally,

'and George was taking a break from the lonely life of a game warden.

'After the party, they all went off on safari together,

'where Joy and George got to know each other better.'

When we got to Ijara, I realised that, er...

Joy and myself were falling in love with each other.

This created a very embarrassing situation.

About a month later,

I had to go to Nairobi to report to the chief game warden,

and I made up my mind that on no account would I see anything of Joy.

So I went to a hotel and booked a room.

As I came out, who did I see but Joy? That was the end of my good intentions.

'Joy divorced her husband and, within a week, married George.

'They often travelled together in the bush.

'This was unusual for a western woman because of the dangers.

'Her desire to do so was fuelled by an insatiable curiosity

'for the natural world

'and a real talent as an artist.'

Joy was obviously attracted

to George for his lifestyle.

And the places that he went, the area he covered,

the sort of quiet man that he was.

He obviously admired her ability to keep up

on these walks through the bush.

Just imagine all these other colonial people had married

very nice ladies with Laura Ashley dresses, doing their knitting.

And here was this absolute lunatic from Austria.

'As game warden, George looked after the northern frontier of Kenya,

'a region the size of the British Isles.

'At this time, the Europeans had bagged Kenya's most fertile land

'for agriculture.

'Reserves were set aside for wildlife.

'As they were unfenced, conflict between animals and local pasturalists was inevitable.

'George Adamson was there to keep the peace.'

His job was to protect the habitat

set aside for wildlife, and dealing with conflict issues

between local people and the animals that he was protecting.

So, on occasion, he would have to shoot a lion

that had raided cattle or was a threat to human life.

'In 1956, George was tracking a lion

'that had killed and eaten his game scout's brother

'when his assistant was confronted by a hostile lioness.'

Suddenly, I saw him turn, look under the rock and fire his rifle.

At that moment, a lioness dashed out straight at him.

I couldn't shoot because he was in my line of fire.

Luckily, the game scout fired and caused the lioness to turn.

As she turned, I managed to shoot her.

GUN SHOT

'The lioness was found to be in milk,

'meaning there were almost certainly cubs nearby.

'George and his assistant set about trying to find them.'

We located the cubs in a cleft in the rock.

They were deep inside. We couldn't reach them.

We had to cut a forked stick and, finally, we got these cubs out.

'George brought the three cubs back to Joy to look after.

'She wanted to keep all of them

'but, in the end, was only allowed to keep one - Elsa.

'The other two were sent to a zoo.

'The extraordinary record of their life with Elsa

'exists because Joy and George had the foresight to shoot

'dozens of reels of cine film.

'The Adamsons wanted to return Elsa to the wild

'and were determined to release her while she was young.

'One major obstacle stood in the way.

'Elsa couldn't hunt for herself.

'Joy and George set about teaching her, improvising along the way.

'George began by killing animals in front of Elsa

'and getting her to take possession.

'This progressed to dragging carcasses behind their car.

'Elsa graduated to killing for herself

'and the Adamsons felt she was equipped to live free

'and, perhaps one day, mate in the wild.

'This achievement was remarkable in itself.

'When Elsa was released, instead of disappearing into the wilderness,

'she regularly visited the Adamsons.

'Was it possible these savage beasts

'were able to have friendships with humans?

'An already extraordinary relationship was made unique

'when, one day, she arrived at the Adamsons' camp with three cubs.

'News of this remarkable story spread

'when a young David Attenborough was invited to the Adamsons.'

My cameraman colleague and I were fortunate to be invited by the Adamsons

out to Kenya.

We arrived at the end of the dry season,

when the whole of Kenya was bare and dusty.

'They were not at all what I had thought. George was very gruff.'

He grunted, "Ugh! OK!" That sort of thing.

And Joy was extreme...

extremely brusque and rude to him.

'I didn't hear her being affectionate to him at all.'

'Tensions between Joy and George were heightened,

'because Elsa and her cubs had just disappeared.'

'Joy said that Elsa had been fighting with a female that was trying to take over her territory.

'And Joy said to George,'

"You must go out and shoot it."

Which wasn't exactly the animal lover I thought I'd come to see.

George was very gruff, and then it got violent.

It was so embarrassing, I got up and left.

JOY CALLS TO ELSA

Elsa turned up and strolled into the camp and Joy was in ecstasy.

Her beloved animal had returned.

Elsa, come on. Come on.

Joy rushed and embraced Elsa.

And said, "Jinja mbusin!" I don't speak Swahili.

I thought that meant she was calling it a ginger pussy! It means "kill a goat".

While Joy was going, "My dear Elsa,"

at the back there were the blood-curdling sounds of a goat

having its throat cut.

With the blood still gushing from its throat, this shuddering body

was dragged in and chained to a stump

so that Elsa could toy with it.

'It was uncharted territory, and the Adamsons' relationship with Elsa

'raised many questions in Attenborough's mind.'

There is certainly a contradiction

between thinking that one individual animal is so important

that you will kill other individual animals to support that animal.

'Elsa was the centre of Joy's world.'

JOY: I can't explain,

my relation to Elsa because it is something I can't compare.

I have never had the deep...love,

in the purest sense of the word, with any human being before.

The truth about Joy is she always wanted unconditional love,

which probably no human being is ever quite capable of evoking

in somebody else.

But I think she felt that she had it with Elsa.

'One interpretation of this extraordinarily strong relationship

'was that Elsa had become the child that Joy and George never had.

'Desmond Morris, the then curator for mammals at London Zoo,

'believed the real reasons were more complex.'

I've heard people say that Elsa was like a child to Joy.

But...she was bigger than Joy! She wasn't really a child figure.

It sounds strange to say this but I think she was...

I don't mean this physically, but she was Joy's lover.

Joy was in love with Elsa.

It was a loving, almost erotic relationship.

'Joy wanted to tell the world

'about rehabilitating Elsa back to the wild,

'and the extraordinary relationship they had.

'She decided to write a book and went to Desmond Morris for advice.'

She didn't walk in, she padded, like a lioness.

She was carrying a pile of photo albums, like this. Great big tower of albums.

She put them on my desk and said, "I want you to help me with my lioness. Look at these!"

I took the first album and opened it

and there was a picture of her with an adult lioness

in a fond embrace.

I turned the page and there was another photograph of her

in a fond embrace with a lioness.

I went through all these albums, thousands of pictures of her

almost all in a fond embrace with a lioness.

I said, "Well, how can I help?"

She said, "I want to write a book about it and you must help me."

I said, "Honestly,

"I don't think there's a plot that would make a book."

She picked up her albums and padded out and said she would find somebody who could help her.

She went round various publishers who told her the same story.

I wasn't the only one, but boy did we get it wrong?!

'Undeterred by this knock-back, Joy returned to Kenya

'and wrote Born Free,

'sometimes drawing on George's copious diaries for reference.

'The manuscript was rejected by dozens of publishers.

'They didn't think the public would be interested in their story.

'Joy's luck changed when she visited a founder of Harvill Press.'

One morning in 1959, I came into our office

and saw a lady sitting at my desk.

She said, "I'm Joy Adamson and I've brought you a best-seller."

She was holding a rather dog-eared manuscript.

When I'd heard the extraordinary history of Elsa,

I was as sure as she was that this really was a best-seller.

'What was different about Born Free

'was that nobody had written about an intense personal relationship

'with a wild animal like this before.

'There were fictional stories, like The Jungle Book, but this was real.

'Something else was different about this book for its time -

'photos that graphically showed the Adamsons' relationship with Elsa.'

The pictures in Born Free are attractive.

They do imply a possibility of a direct personal link

between a human and another animal, a predator.

That was very attractive and fitted with 1960s environmentalism

that put people into nature, talked about the relations between people and nature as close,

not one of dominance.

'The timing of Born Free also coincided with a wave of interest

'in all things wild.

'A new genre of natural history television programmes

'had created the perfect environment into which this book was published.'

DESMOND MORRIS: Television was introducing people to animals.

David Attenborough was doing Zoo Quest for BBC. I was doing Zoo Time for ITV.

Armand and Michaela were doing On Safari.

People were discovering natural history.

The cinema had never really done this.

Then, just as we thought we'd had enough, she showed her profile.

Surely, the most abnormal and freakish rhino horn ever seen.

DESMOND MORRIS: It was a period when people were ready

to see animals more as fascinating creatures to be studied,

rather than wild beasts to be hunted down.

'But this new genre of television programme

'took quite a simplistic approach.'

The advantage television had

was that you could do it in half-hour lumps.

You could say, "This is an elephant. Isn't that lovely?

"By the way, over here is a rhinoceros.

"Over there is a giraffe."

You didn't actually need a coherent story,

a dramatic line, necessarily, to get people interested in wildlife.

Now what came along was, having got that interest, seen the landscape,

now you've got a dramatic story.

The book turned out to be a quite extraordinary best-seller.

I don't know... Probably translated into 20 or 30 languages.

It sold millions of copies all over the world.

After five years, Joy had earned the equivalent of 10 million in today's money.

'This enormous success made the Adamsons globally famous.

'But it was starting to take its toll

'on their already brittle marriage.

'Before Elsa, they would often spend long periods of time apart.

'While she was around,

'they stayed together for the longest period in their marriage.

'After Elsa died from tick fever in 1961,

'a heartbroken Joy and George began to spend most of their time apart.

'Joy went on a worldwide lecture tour promoting the book,

'while George stayed in Kenya.

'With the marriage in difficulty, Joy feared George would leave her.

'She tightened her grip on the millions the book was generating

'and refused to share the royalties with George.

'Joy donated most of the money to a charity she set up

'to fund various conservation projects in Kenya.

'It wasn't just here that the impact of Elsa's story was being felt.

'It was starting to unleash a cultural phenomenon all over the western world.'

When I was making my programmes, Zoo Time, I often set a competition.

One of the competitions was when I asked children

to send me a painting of their favourite animal.

I got a lot of lions and, believe it or not, I still have some of these.

Before Elsa, this is how children saw lions, in those days.

It was a ten-year-old who did that.

Here's a rather sad looking lion.

Children had a very specific image of lions.

But Joy, bringing along more friendly lions,

gave us this splendid collection.

Now, suddenly, the lions are all smiling.

Christopher Nicholls, aged 8.

LAUGHING: Just coming up to retirement age now! He's 58 now!

I don't think we'd have seen happy lions

without Elsa's story being so well known.

'The story of the relationship between Joy Adamson and Elsa

'was inducing a friendlier attitude

'towards wild animals.

'They'd shed their savage image

'from colonial times, when they were feared and hunted.

'Instead, they were being attributed with personalities,

'individual characteristics that had been reserved for pets,

'with the same feelings as humans -

'a tendency known as anthropomorphism,

'something which many accused Joy of doing.'

What the Adamsons had done was to take an animal

and rear it to become equipped to hunt in the wild.

That animal had, voluntarily, come back

and brought her cubs to show to their foster parents.

That very sentence is anthropomorphic.

How do I know she brought those cubs to show to her foster parents,

that it was her foster parents that she thought had to see her babies?

I don't. Neither did Joy, but Joy believed that was so.

JOY: One afternoon,

when she brought the cubs across the river,

she was definitely very proud of them and loved them.

The fact was that she said, "Here I am with my family.

"I'm bringing them to you."

'Giving animals emotions like pride and love

'was seen as inappropriate by scientists at the time.

'When Born Free was published, the scientific view

'was that animals only had instincts and reflexes,

'and weren't capable of having individual will.

'Much of the scientific community felt that Joy's observations,

'lacking academic rigour, proved nothing.

'But this new thinking that animals could have individual feelings

'began to inform some scientific research.

'One scientist wanted to formalise the study of animal behaviour,

'Dr Louis Leakey.

'Along with his wife Mary, their discoveries of primate fossils

'rewrote the history on the origins of mankind.

'Being a paleoanthropologist,

'Leakey sought an evolutionary connection between apes and mankind

'by linking their behaviour.

'One of his methods was to send female researchers into the wild

'to observe and document animal behaviour.

'The first was Jane Goodall, who studied chimps.

'She was followed by Dian Fossey, studying gorillas,

'and Birute Galdikas, studying orangutans.

'Like Joy Adamson, Leakey's "angels" weren't scientists, either.

'At least, not when they started.'

He wanted them to be as open-minded and unblinkered as possible,

while he did direct their research.

And then got them enlisted into universities,

so they were taken into the scientific community.

But, because they came from a non-scientific background,

they pushed at the limits of what was acceptable.

'Like Joy, Jane Goodall gave names to the animals she was studying.

'This act alone was met with fierce disapproval from academics.

'They were used to only giving

'the animals they were observing a number.

'Jane persisted with her work and, along with other field researchers,

'started to formalise the observation of wild animals.

'Slowly, scientific thinking began to change about animal behaviour,

'revealing intriguing insights.'

We saw, certainly in advanced animals, intelligent ones

and less intelligent ones.

Aggressive ones and cowardly ones. That's a moral term! Less aggressive.

And that had a huge effect, I think, on zoological science.

Now, I think, we do have

a much more measured and accurate

and profound understanding of animal life,

because we recognise that there are individuals within the society.

I'm talking about the higher animals, the more complex ones.

That has been a very useful corrective.

'Now that both the scientific community and public accepted

'that wild animals had individual characteristics,

'this raised philosophical questions about how they should be treated.

'It used to be acceptable to confine animals in small cages.

'With this new thinking,

'such practices became highly questionable.'

The research that has come out on animal intelligence

has led us, really, to the point where we have to question

what are animals' rights, what rights should they have?

The changing attitudes towards animals fuelled

a whole new conservation movement,

which was quite different from our old colonial idea of,

"We'll put this land aside because it's a good hunting reserve for us."

For the first time, animals were being protected for their own sake.

This sense that they had as much right to live on this earth

as we do.

MUSIC: Theme to "Born Free"

'The book Born Free had contributed to this emerging consciousness.

'But this was only the start.

'What would ultimately turn it into a global movement for conservation

'was when Hollywood got hold of it in 1966.

'The feature film of Born Free

'starred the married couple of Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna.

'To make the story realistic, they were going to replicate

'the relationship Joy and George had with Elsa,

'but on a much larger scale.

'On hand, to help them forge these relationships with the film lions,

'was the original George.'

It was decided at the beginning,

when we were doing the film in this new way,

that George Adamson, ourselves and the lionesses would be free

and the crew would be in cages with the camera.

Now, there were very sensible reasons for that.

We had to establish the relationship with the animal.

It worked really well.

In the end, we had over 20 animals of varying ages and sizes.

Probably about four or five were animals

that we had to get to know quite well as individuals.

I think we really did have a glimpse of what could be established

between a human being and a wild creature.

Particularly a dangerous wild creature, a carnivore, like a lion.

'This novel approach to filming was successful

'and brought the story of Born Free to a new audience of millions.

'It had a more direct effect on its stars, who became evangelists

'for the conservation movement.

'In the movie, Elsa was released into the wild.

'The reality of what happened to the film lions was different.

'After shooting had finished,

'all of them were to be sold to zoos around the world

'so that the producers could recoup some production costs.

'To Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna this was a betrayal

'of what the Born Free story was about.

'They lobbied hard to have all the lions released into the wild.

'Eventually, the producers relented.

'Three film lions, Boy, Girl and Ugas,

'were sent to George's camp to start their rehabilitation.

'Stirred by what had happened,

'Bill and Virginia made their first documentary

'about the film lions they'd worked with.'

Bill was going off to George's tiny camp, to make his documentary.

And I stayed at home, feeling quite envious, I have to say,

that he was off having all that fun.

Although loving being with the children!

I felt so much part of the story. It was hard to be left behind.

I wasn't really left behind because he phoned me, not very successfully.

Is that you, Bill? FAINT VOICE ON CRACKLING LINE

No, sorry. I can't... You keep fading, darling.

I'm sorry if I keep fading. I'm making a radio telephone call.

'After the lions are freed, Bill and Virginia made a feature film

'about an elephant in Kenya called Pole Pole,

'which went to London Zoo after filming was finished.

'In 1983, when she died in captivity after a botched attempt to move her,

'the Travers decided it was time to do more than just make films.

'They set up a charity to focus on why wild animals should no longer be kept in captivity,

'and campaigned to close the worst zoos.

'Initially Zoo Check,

'the name was changed to the Born Free Foundation in 1991,

'with a broadened focus

'across a range of species, from dolphins to giraffes.

'It's now been going for over 25 years and, to celebrate,

'they're having a star-studded fundraiser at the Albert Hall.

'The charity is run by Bill Travers' and Virginia McKenna's son, Will.

'He has experienced first-hand how the meaning of the name Born Free

'has changed from the publication of the book 50 years ago.'

Born Free is a brand, but we've got a brand with value.

A pedigree goes back to the book, through the film and the foundation

for 25 years.

I think, people who care about animals,

when they hear "Born Free", even if they don't know what we do,

they know what we stand for.

'In the 50 years since Born Free was published,

'the Adamsons have become legends in the conservation movement.

'Virginia holds the friendships she had with both of them very dear.'

It was ten days ago that I was standing next to Elsa's grave.

'The first time that I stood there was in 1965

'with Joy Adamson.

'She invited me to go for three days

'and really just experience her emotions about this animal

'about which she felt so deeply.

'After I'd been standing at Elsa's grave,'

I then went to George's first little camp

'in Meru,

'where he started his lion rehabilitation work

'with our three lions from Born Free.'

You don't really need the rusty metal things, you only have to remember the man and the spirit.

That's really fine.

VOICE BREAKING: He was such a good friend.

Bill and I both treasured his friendship so much.

I thought he was an extraordinary man.

The proof of it, that his lions loved him.

If you're loved by a wild animal, that says something for you.

'Some of the descendents of these film lions can be seen

'in Meru National Park today.'

Oh, my goodness!

There is a chance that some of the lions you see in Meru here

are descendents of Girl.

Girl was one of the lions that was in Born Free.

We know that Girl had cubs.

And... So these could be, COULD be, descendents of hers.

I like to think that.

They never cease to impress me.

I just think they're the most wonderful species of animal.

I love all animals, but obviously I feel a special feeling for lions,

because of Born Free.

'Throughout the 1960s and '70s,

'public attitudes towards keeping animals in captivity changed.

'Cheaper air travel, combined with a desire to see animals in the wild,

'created a multi-billion-pound tourist industry.

'This income is often held up as a solution to conservation issues.

'Some see this as being a bit simplistic.'

Born Free contributed to a set of ideas about African wildlife

in the minds of people

in Europe and North America.

An image of Africa as a wild place, full of amazing animals,

where people could go and have close relations with those animals.

That was never a true picture of the relations between people and wildlife in Africa.

And it isn't a helpful basis for constructing conservation.

The money that tourism generates goes through a lot of hands

before it trickles back to poorer African people.

Usually, very little gets to local people.

So there is a sense that protected areas,

national parks, national reserves, are a playground

for European tourists.

'There can be no doubt

'that tourist money helps sustain conservation areas

'like Meru and other reserves.

'To attract this money, tourists want to see the big game of Africa,

'lions especially, and this raises concerns

'because it can focus conservation efforts on large charismatic animals

'and often doesn't take the whole of biodiversity into account.'

It's about protecting the fierce, the rare, the dramatic,

which is not, any more, particularly helpful.

Efforts that go into protecting particular individuals and rare species

may be good in an animal welfare sense,

but it isn't delivering conservation of living diversity

across east Africa in a very complete way.

THUNDER RUMBLES

'An alternative view is that, by focusing on charismatic animals

'at the top of the food chain, the whole ecosystem benefits.'

There is great value attached

to individual stories.

We can follow the story of an animal from birth to death.

If we follow individuals, we can expand on the wider issues

then become, hopefully, part of the solution.

'As fierce debates about conservation continue,

'they show how the story of Born Free took on a life

'separate from Joy and George Adamson.

'They continued to live out their own lives,

'without the Hollywood ending.

'In the mid '60s, the Adamsons were both still living in Meru,

'but in separate camps on opposite sides of the park.

'Joy raised and released a cheetah, Pippa,

'replicating the same remarkable relationship she had had with Elsa.

'Even though Elsa had died several years before,

'Joy believed that she was still guiding her work.'

I need to be very careful

not to be regarded as a crank - I'm not. I don't think so.

My friends, at least, don't make me feel like I'm a crank.

This, I have no comparing in all this.

But there is a force in me which...

..um, sometimes works on me

as if something dictates me to do.

And I am just a kind of, er...

interpreter, medium.

'Joy wrote two books about her experiences with Pippa.

'These, along with Born Free and its sequels,

'continued to make millions for Joy's wildlife appeal.

'She used this money to help set up four national parks in Kenya,

'including Meru.

'While Joy was with Pippa the cheetah,

'George continued to rehabilitate and release lions into the wild.

'His work with the three film lions, Boy, Girl and Ugas,

'initially went well, but it wasn't to last.'

The Adamsons were naive in what they were trying to achieve.

The idea that you can raise lion cubs, get them to lose their fear of humans

then release them into a reserve where there are humans nearby,

which make them very easy prey,

is extremely foolish.

I think George was perfectly well aware that releasing lions

was an extremely dangerous occupation.

There is no such thing as a totally safe lion.

He knew that but he believed, on balance,

that it was not criminally irresponsible

to let loose these creatures.

He probably did underestimate the dangers.

'In 1969, his favourite lion, Boy,

'attacked a child sitting in a car.

'Boy should have been shot for this, but he escaped a death sentence

'and was moved out of Meru instead.

'George found a new home for Boy

'in central Kenya, at Kora.

'Here, his project could start up afresh.

'He set up camp with his assistant, Stanley.

'It wasn't long before Boy attacked again.'

Early on the morning of 6th June, my cook, Kimani, came into the hut

and said that Boy had just arrived.

A few minutes later, Kimani had come in to clear the table,

when both of us heard cries from the bush behind the camp.

I grabbed my rifle and ran to the back gate of the compound.

I saw Boy with Stanley in his jaws.

As I rushed at him, he dropped Stanley and moved into the bush.

I ran a few paces past Stanley and shot Boy through the heart.

In a few moments, I was back with Stanley.

As I started to examine his wounds, he died.

'Shooting Boy was the hardest thing that George had ever had to do.

'It deeply affected him.

'His diary entry that night reveals how he felt.'

"Lions very quiet. They know something's happened.

"Boy, my old friend - farewell."

'Following Stanley's death, George needed to find an assistant.

'The answer came from the East End of London in Tony Fitzjohn,

'who would become George's right-hand man.'

Here's the Kora boundary. We're just coming in now.

'Tony left here over 20 years ago but has been invited back

'by the Kenya Wildlife Service to look at rehabilitating the park so that tourists will visit.'

I lived with a guy old enough to be my grandfather for 20 years.

I'm going back to Kora the same age he was when I joined him.

That's very weird.

'There is a threat of Somali bandits in the area.

'The Kenya Wildlife Service keeps an armed presence to stop incursions.'

-How are you?

-Good. Nice seeing you again.

Can we have a ride to camp, please?

'Tony first arrived at the camp

'after being picked up from the nearest town by George's brother.

'With no experience, he was about to get thrown to the lions

'and start to help George rehabilitate them back to the wild.'

'I came in through the main gate.

'George came out of the mess.

'There was a lioness pacing up and down the wire, calling.'

Everything felt right. I just thought, "This is extraordinary."

'I remember a couple of weeks later George turning round and saying,

'"How long do you think you can stay?"'

I said, "About ten, 12 years, I guess!"

So he was kind of stuck with me!

'When George and I had perfected our methods getting these lions back,

'we were running up to 16, 17 lions at a time in three prides.

'That took some juggling.

'We probably worked so well because so few people came here.

'We were just left alone to do it on our own.'

'Since Elsa had died in 1961,

'Joy and George had spent increasing amounts of time apart.

'By the 1970s, they were effectively separated.'

I never really understood.

I think there was a lot of "decent old gent" stuff in there.

They were just doing their separate things.

Every time she came here, he'd get so upset.

She'd create such a stir. Obviously, they were completely incompatible.

'George was now firmly established in the wilderness of Kora.

'Joy had moved on to rehabilitating a leopard called Penny.

'Everybody thought that she'd taken on too much this time.

'Leopards are seen as much more unpredictable

'than lions or cheetahs.

'Working with her, she received several broken bones.

'Life in camp was also made hard for Joy

'because of her difficult personality.

'She wasn't getting on with her staff.

DESMOND MORRIS: She understood animals brilliantly.

But she didn't understand people.

She didn't know how to handle people.

She treated them like a lioness would treat an interloper.

People got a pretty rough time from her, I think.

'It was a hard and dangerous life but, by the end of 1979,

'she'd succeeded against everyone's expectations.

'Penny had given birth to two cubs

'and Joy had finished writing her book about the story.'

Every evening, she went for a walk out of the camp just before dark.

One night, she failed to come back.

The assistant went to look for her and found, 200 or 300 yards away,

her body slashed and bleeding beside the track.

He radioed for help and said he thought

that Joy had been killed by a lion.

This led to a news flash going all the way round the world

that Joy had been killed by a lion.

And, in a way, this might have been a poetic end to the story.

'A postmortem revealed that she'd died from a knife wound.

'Her murderer was an ex employee

'who she'd got into an argument with over money.'

In her books and films and, above all, in her influence,

she will continue to extend on all people of goodwill

who care what happens to all of God's creatures.

'Joy was cremated

'and her ashes divided between the graves of Pippa the cheetah

'and her beloved Elsa.

'Although George didn't see money from Born Free while Joy was alive,

'she did leave him £8,000 a year in her will.

'This, with his game warden's pension,

'continued to fund his lion project in Kora.

'In the '80s, his situation was becoming increasingly dangerous.

'Just across the Tana River were Somali bandits,

'who poached wildlife in Kora and sent George threats

'because they wanted his land.'

George had been living with danger all his life.

So he wasn't surprised when he heard that the Somalis,

who lived across the frontier close to the reserve, were out to get him.

'In 1986,

'his brother Terrence died.

'Then, in 1988, Tony left Kora

'to set up his own wildlife project in Tanzania.

'George's security was becoming compromised,

'as two of his most trusted people were no longer with him in camp.

'Then, in 1989,

'the almost inevitable happened.'

'Good evening. The headlines at six o'clock.'

George Adamson, who worked with wild animals in east Africa, has been shot dead.

It's believed he was murdered saving a friend from bandits.

Someone staying in George's camp was being driven to the airport.

The car was stopped by bandits.

The bandits dragged the driver out and broke both his legs with an iron bar. Shots were fired.

George heard them in the camp and drove up in his Land Rover with two men.

The car that was shot up

on the way to the airstrip after the plane buzzed was right here.

SPEAKS IN SWAHILI

So it was parked on the ditch.

George came down, slowed down a bit, almost stopped.

Three Somalis were taking it in turn with a lady on the front of the car.

George saw this and got really angry.

He must have known he didn't stand much of a chance.

It was a bit of a suicide run, wasn't it?

So he came down firing the pistol out of the window of his car.

He got to here. They were shooting him in the front of the car.

They must have hit him but didn't kill him.

Just when he was about level with them is when he started to lose control of the car.

He veered off the road right here

and went off into the bush.

The shot that actually killed him

was when they were firing from behind.

A shot went in through his spine at the back.

'In the ensuing confusion, the girl George had come to help

'managed to escape.'

He wouldn't have objected to that death.

He wouldn't have wanted

to go to an old people's home and be pushed around in a wheelchair.

Although it was terrible that he was actually killed,

he died in the place where his heart was.

'The funeral took place in Kora a couple of days later.

'George's murder was reported all over the west.

'Dozens of people flew in to pay their last respects.

'His murder provoked an uncompromising response

'from the Kenyan Wildlife Service.

'Their then head, Richard Leakey, enforced a shoot-to-kill policy for all poachers.'

The wildlife and security forces of this country

will not be deterred by violence under any circumstances whatsoever.

'Also, Kora was designated as a Kenyan national park,

'a fitting legacy for George's work.'

GUNFIRE

The main thing is

what George believed in, the philosophy, the work, is carried on by Tony.

'Since George's funeral, no new lions have been released in Kora,

'but there are now plans to start their rehabilitation once again.'

We are in collaboration with the George Adamson Wildlife Trust,

being headed by Tony Fitzjohn.

Fundraising for Kora, rehabilitating Kora,

rehabilitating first the George Adamson's camp,

what we call Kamly Ya Simba, where he used to live.

'Tony and the Kenyan Wildlife Service

'are under no illusions that this will be a difficult, dangerous job.

'Not least because of poachers and bandits still in the area.'

We are fighting the war against anybody

'who is against wildlife and conservation.

'So I can say we are playing a great role.'

And we are proud of that.

'Conservation was introduced into Kenya by the colonial government

'and continued after independence in 1963,

'when Africans started to take control of their own wildlife.

'There are initiatives to teach the next generation about conservation issues.

'Born Free has a role in this.

'At Joy's old home on Lake Naivasha there is a field study centre

'for schoolchildren.'

Elsa was a lioness.

And "mere", for us here, means "near water".

'Here, they learn about their wildlife.

'It is on this new generation of African children

'that the future of conservation in Kenya will rely.

'It all started out as two people's experiment

'to see if they could rehabilitate a lion cub back into the wild.

'From these small beginnings,

'its influence can still be felt far and wide.'

How does Born Free, the story of Elsa,

fit into the history of the 20th century's changing attitude towards animals?

I think the answer is that it gave it a boost.

People were beginning to see animals

as partners, if you like, with humans

on this small planet.

And not as...simply us and them, but we were all together

in this problem of how this planet was going to survive.

'Born Free played an important role in showing how wild animals

'could no longer be seen as a commodity

'but should be recognised as individuals that deserved rights.'

You have the mind set that has changed.

Millions of people do not regard lions, for example,

as bloodthirsty killers,

but as creatures with personalities, with desires,

with needs, and I think that is the most phenomenal legacy

from two people and a cub in the bush in the 1950s.

'This cultural shift helped spawn a global conservation movement

'that is still going strong.

'The positive impact that Born Free's had since it was published

'can be in little doubt.

'50 years on, the issues facing conservation have changed.'

It's hugely to the Adamsons' credit, Joy and George,

taking that popularity and that income and that surge of feeling,

they allowed it to be taken into fuelling the conservation movement.

That should never be minimised but, I would hope that as we continue,

the zeitgeist that enabled that to happen

has become a little more sophisticated

so that now people realise that the natural world is more complex.

Our relationship with the natural world is more complex.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd