When I was a child well before the Second World War I was entranced by the mighty roar of the lion introducing all films made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Hollywood.
At the time, I never thought for a second that I would one day personally meet up face-to-face with this king of the jungle in his normal habitat in the wilds of Africa.

This one-in-a-million totally unexpected event did, however, eventuate when I was somewhat older and was working about 70 years ago as a foreign correspondent and journalist on a safari assignment in that part of Africa now known as Namibia.

My many and varied memories of this former U.N. Trust Territory include many absorbing visions of some of the most blood-red sunsets one can see anywhere outside of Egypt and the Sahara Desert. They generally include a foreground made up of ochre-coloured sand dunes against a background of craggy and mystical distant purple mountains, but little else.
Such was the view I drank in one day in 1952 when I found myself sitting under a large spreading tree, taking in my favourite Namibian sunset panorama and thinking I was the only person lucky to be alive in our big wide world.
My soporific state of wonderment and sheer peace of mind was, however, suddenly disturbed when I heard a rustling sound coming from a nearby patch of high dry grass to my not-so-distant right. In a flash, my eyes caught sight of a bounding fully-grown lion that suddenly stopped within 50 metres of where I sat, now transformed into a frenzy of cold sweat and nerves.

In spite of the fear that literally paralysed my body, I immediately concluded that here was Leo the Lion who must have escaped from his celluloid portrait in the film producing business to reverse his former role by taking stock of his audience, instead of the other way around.

My terror-stricken eyes told me that here was the biggest black maned beast I had ever seen at the cinema or in my favourite books on the animals of the world.

Slowly I sought out my .375 magnum rifle I always carried for protection when on safari in Africa. But the terror of the moment made it impossible for me to even move a finger let alone a muscle to pick up the gun.
Although the proverbial ‘butterflies’ in my stomach gave me a very distinct message of imminent danger, I was so mesmerised by the lion’s fiery golden eyes looking straight at me that my brain told me not to panic and to instead try to enjoy the moment, irrespective of any nasty outcome.

Quite surprisingly, without daring to blink even an eyelid, I drank in the scene before me, just like I would have done if the beast had been a friendly pussy cat. The very sight of this particular lion surprisingly seemed to bring back my initial memories of Leo the MGM film star at the start of all the cowboy films I used to watch as a callow youth still at school.

This first encounter of mine in Africa with the most majestic of all members of the animal world took only a second or two before he suddenly snorted and growled fiercely at me with his fiery eyes intent on apparently catching my attention.

Leo then leaped in a single bound towards my quivering self before stopping some 20 metres closer. He then sat down on his haunches, still with me fixed in his gaze while at the same time raising his royal head against the still night sky to give a mighty ear shattering throaty roar which no doubt sent all the creatures of the African veld scurrying for their burrows.

This endless call of the wild literally paralysed every nerve and sinew in my body. But what was even more disconcerting to me was the fact that this very real Leo’s great and majestic call actually rattled the beans in the pods growing high on the tree under which I was sitting.

The sound waves that were bellowed from his open and slathering jaws were so strong that the beans actually vibrated in unison as he reached a screeching crescendo.

Terrified by this experience in a way I still cannot explain, all I could think of was the magnificence of the great animal’s stance, indicating that I was possibly on his menu for dinner. But, to my astonishment and relief, this granddaddy of all lions suddenly looked away from me, sat down calmly like a house cat to lick his great mane before nonchantly loping off into oblivion without as much as a second glance at me, a mere mortal left to ponder my escape from injury or possible death.

And so ended my first encounter with the very regal lions of Africa which, in those far-off days of the 1950s and 60s, inhabited most of the African continent between the Atlantic and Indian oceans.
According to up-to-date reports from the World Wildlife Fund, however, since my days in Africa the lion population has been whittled down by 60 per cent. In addition, these majestic creatures now occupy only eight per cent of their original homelands.

The reasons given for this sad state of affairs in the natural world is African Independence since 1963, the massive growth of Africa’s indigenous population, the need for more land for housing and the interaction between man and beast.

A fast-growing trade in wildlife has also caused our big cats to now be regarded as a vulnerable species by the U.N. in spite of the fact they do not have any predators except us.