'A day in the bush is never dull,' writes Joy Adamson. 'Nor', says Elspeth Huxley in
her foreword, 'is a page in her autobiography'.
For twenty years Joy Adamson has been a pioneer in the battle to change the way in
which we look at our planet and at the creatures who share it with us. She has camped out
on snow-covered mountains, struggled across parching deserts, and narrowly escaped death
by drowning; she has survived a variety of accidents, one of which deprived her of the
power to paint; she has lived in the wild with cheetahs, leopards and lions. Her
relationship with the lioness, Elsa, overturned a number of previously held myths about
wild animals. And when BORN FREE and its successors brought Joy a fortune of which she had
never dreamed, she gave almost every penny of it away to preserve the world which was its
source.
But, as Elspeth Huxley points out, even if Joy's beasts had not made her famous, she
would still have been known and admired for her classic paintings and her unique record of
the tribal dresses and regalia of Kenya. Among the many fascinations of this book are the
author's revelations of the experiences which underpin her achievements - her formative
childhood traumas in a feudal Austria; her study of music, sculpture and psychology; her
early marriages which led to her unexpected destiny in Africa and her lasting partnership
with George Adamson, first encountered at the head of a camel train on some outlandish
safari.
Here, for the first time, the countless readers of Joy Adamson's books have the
privilege of meeting her - not so much as an author but as an outstanding human being.
I
The St. Bernard
in the Bus
Was it a portent that as children our favourite game was a lion hunt and that because
of my blonde hair and reputation for being a quick runner, I was always assigned the role
of the lioness? During the summer holidays there were often fifteen of us children staying
at the Seifenmühle, our estate in Austria, enough to provide plenty of hunters for two
lions. The part of the male lion was always allotted to my favourite cousin, Peter. Since
the estate was very large it sometimes took the hunters several hours to locate their
quarry and occasionally they failed to do so within the prescribed time limit. In that
case the hunt was over and we lions had won.
It was an exciting game; if we saw the pursuers closing in on one of our dens the other
lion would roar to distract their attention and then run for dear life.
All my happiest childhood memories are attached to Seifenmühle, which belonged to my
mother's family, the Weisshuhns. They were paper manufacturers who owned a number of
factories and mills. Amongst other activities, they recycled bank notes and I well
remember the time, after the First World War, when one needed a trillion note to buy a
dozen eggs. Since paper, however, was still valuable, the bank notes were stored in
gigantic silos which stood in the yards of our factories. In these we children made
tunnels and played amongst the billions and trillions - a strange introduction to money,
but perhaps it helped me to realise how worthless it can become when man-made values
change.
As many as thirty people were sometimes staying at the Villa Friederike in the holidays
and Weisshuhn cousins came not only from Austria but from Germany, Italy, England and
America. Friends came too and the inscription on a door at the entrance of the villa was
typical of our family:
Ten were invited, twenty have come,
Put water in the soup and make them welcome.
The place was a paradise for children. There was a tennis court and a swimming pool.
Our ambition was to race a bicycle from the high diving board down a wooden rail into the
water without turning over, or to sit in a little four-wheel wagon and roll at great speed
into the pool, trying not to sink when we landed in the water. We and our cousins
conducted our private Olympic Games; we competed in throwing the discus, in high jumps, in
target shooting and riding and in obstacle races. For the birthdays of the grown-ups we
put on plays and on many evenings we gave concerts at which we sang Lieder, or
our improvised orchestra played.
The highlight of each summer was the Harvest Festival. As soon as the last load of ripe
corn had been stored in the barns, the peasants arrived, sitting in beautifully decorated
wagons and wearing home-made fancy dresses. The manager presented Uncle Karl, the head of
the family, with a crown six feet high made of corn, poppies, daisies and cornflowers.
Then a small girl in a white dress, brittle with starch, her hair brushed tightly back,
her face shining, stammered a poem. Afterwards we children carried trays of cakes, sweets,
fruit juices and schnaps to the peasants and then the real fun began.
We all piled onto the harvest wagon and drove to the barn which, with highly coloured
flags and ribbons dangling all around, had been transformed into a dance hall. To the
sound of a concertina and two fiddles Uncle Karl opened the ball with the manager's wife,
while her husband danced with my aunt, after which we all joined in.
Among the people on the estate I remember especially our coachman, Orga, a Hungarian
with a stiff leg and many black haired children. He often took me into the forest to
collect mushrooms; I was very fond of him.
Hunting was a tradition in our family and there were plenty of roebucks, hares, foxes
and partridges on the estate. I always hated the organised shoots in which the guns were
placed in a wide circle, waiting for the beaters to drive the terrified hare to its end.
But, in general, at that age I took shoots in my stride. The only evidence of my distaste
was that I did not like eating game and I absolutely refused to eat hare, with the result
that I got punished for my fussiness.
It was when I was fifteen that I had a curious experience which made a lasting
impression on me. I was walking with our game-keeper on his afternoon round. We had seen a
fair number of deer before we sat down to rest on the edge of a forest glade. Soon a
roebuck appeared and made his way to the side of a little brook, nibbling as he went. The
light was waning and the stillness of the forest seemed to enhance the beauty of the
animal as it moved towards us. I remember that I was actually reflecting on the
senselessness of shooting such a perfect creature when the keeper handed me his rifle,
telling me to shoot the roebuck because its antlers were malformed. I aimed, shot and
killed. What had I done? How could I think so lovingly of the deer and a moment later kill
it? Would I ever be able to trust myself again? Then, before we slung the buck on a pole
the keeper proudly presented me with a twig of pine dipped in the animal's blood. At
dinner the twig was still in my buttonhole and my uncle, who was a keen sportsman,
congratulated me on getting my first buck but I felt like a murderess and vowed never
again to shoot for sport.
There were other incidents too that burned deep into my subconscious and were released
much later when I determined to devote my life to saving wild animals.
There was the marten that our manager kept in a wire cage so tiny that he could hardly
turn round in it. He was there to amuse us children.
There were the small fox cubs which we picked out of a hessian bag and were allowed to
keep as pets but for only a short period, after which they disappeared and were used to
train terriers to drive foxes out of their dens.
Above all, there was my albino rabbit, Hasi, whom I loved. Then one day, it was during
the war, we had rabbit stew. When I remarked to my mother how good it was, she replied
unconcernedly that it was Hasi.
All these incidents seemed to have been distilled in a dream I had years later, in
1940, while I was camping with Mary Leakey, the wife of the famous anthropologist Dr Louis
Leakey. We were excavating remains of early man in the Ngorongoro crater in Tanganyika -
now Tanzania (this was long before the area was made a National Park). The crater was
teeming with wild animals but in spite of our paradise-like surroundings, the setting of
my dream was in Vienna, early on a grey, drizzling November morning.
A man was standing in a long, deserted street waiting for a bus to take him to work. He
was the only living creature among the grey walls of the houses, with the exception of a
St. Bernard dog who seemed equally lonely. After some time the dog walked up to the man
and, rubbing his head against his legs, offered his affection and companionship. The man
was touched by his friendliness and scratched his silky coat in response. When he boarded
the bus the dog followed his new master automatically. Both received a warm welcome
amongst the passengers who, travelling each morning together to work, found the presence
of this dog a welcome change. They made a great fuss of him, to which he responded by
placing his big head on their knees but, as is the habit of a St. Bernard, he left traces
of saliva on their clothes. This soon provoked complaints and finally protests, and the
man was asked to take the dog away. Although he had certainly felt proud when earlier much
attention had been paid to him because of the dog, he now pushed him off the bus into the
street. By then the drizzling rain had turned to snow which continued to fall all day
long. When in the late afternoon the man was returning home, he passed the spot where he
had pushed the dog off the bus. There he saw a mound covered with freshly fallen snow.
Of the inhabitants of Seifenmühle the most colourful personality was my
great-grandfather, a giant of a man who was charming. He also had a big heart but his poor
wife put up with his adventures and their marriage remained as solid as a rock; indeed, it
was the rock on which the couple's children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren were
securely based. It was he, my maternal great-grandfather, who introduced the first car
into the district. It was bright red and to the peasants it seemed to be a smoke-spitting
devil. To stop the advance of this terrifying monster they sprinkled cut glass on the
road. Great-grandfather's reply was to throw little bags of peppermints to the children
whenever he passed through a village. This gave them a better impression of the monster
and so well established did the custom become that even in our days, when cars were
common, it continued.
My great-grandfather owned amongst his many factories one sited on the river Mohra and
here he determined to set up the first water turbine in the country. To do this he had a
tunnel cut through a hill and diverted the course of the river into it. He was sure that
the drop of about a thousand feet at the mouth of the tunnel would generate sufficient
power to electrify the paper factories in the area. The expense involved in cutting the
tunnel was considerable so great-grandfather asked his bankers for a loan. At first they
were reluctant to underwrite such a bold project but in the end they consented.
The day on which the flood waters were to be released through the tunnel was one of
great anxiety for our family. The Government, and financial and technical authorities had
sent representatives to see the water roar out but when the long-awaited moment came
nothing happened. Nor on the second or the third day was there any sign of water;
great-grandfather was faced with disaster. Then on the fourth day a trickle appeared,
which soon swelled to a mighty flood; the new epoch of water power had begun. The failure
of the headwaves to come on the first three days was probably due to the dryness of the
surface of the tunnel, which had to be saturated with moisture before water could pass
through it.
Great-grandfather's next project was to build a dam in a narrow valley of Seifenmühle,
which was flanked by precipitous cliffs. He believed that it would power a reservoir which
would service all the surrounding country. But this project was far too daring for his
contemporaries and it was not until after the Second World War that the biggest dam, in
what was no longer Austria but Czechoslavakia, was set up in that valley of Seifenmühle.
When he made his plans great-grandfather foresaw that the Villa Friederike might one
day be drowned if his dam came into operation. He took precautions against this calamity.
The villa was designed after a prefabricated building in the United States; it could be
dismantled and set up on higher ground.
The United States always attracted great-grandfather, he went there six times with his
sons. On one of these occasions Edison offered him a partnership. He would have accepted
but for his wife's reluctance to see him invest all his capital in risky experiments -
after all, he had twelve children to educate.
Despite his many activities, great-grandfather took a deep interest in his large
family. One of his habits was to drop a gold coin into the first bath taken by each new
baby; he believed that it would bring them good luck. I vividly remember how angry he was
when he arrived too late for my young sister's bath and found her already dressed. From
each of his trips abroad he returned with a present for every grand- and great-grandchild,
although there were thirty of us. I can still recall many little incidents connected with
him; for instance, once when we were taking a walk together we passed a larch tree that
was coveted with small growths, the symptom of some parasitical disease. Great-grandfather
began at once to pluck them and asked me to help him, stressing that when one saw that
there was a job to be done, one should act immediately since the opportunity might not
recur. I have often recalled his words.
One morning when he was eighty-two he drove in a sleigh, with a keeper to inspect the
forest. As they came to a steep hill the sleigh turned over and rolled down the slope.
Great grandfather was not injured but seemed shaken. Nevertheless, he insisted that they
should go on and look at the forest.
During lunch he complained of a slight headache and after wards went upstairs to take a
rest. Half an hour later, someone entered his bedroom and found him dead.
We children watched his funeral from a window.The procession, headed by the local fire
brigade band, seemed never-ending. It consisted of the peasants from the estates, the
factory staff, great-grandfather's many friends and most of the inhabitants of the local
town. How little did any of us then realise that within a generation our strongly-knit
family would be scattered all over the world, with little left in common except our deep
roots in Seifenmühle.
My father, Ober Baurat Victor Gessner, was a civil servant, and later, during the First
World War, a Colonel in charge of a motorised unit. Although I loved and respected him, I
was rather frightened of him. He frequently told us stories, made us observe the habits of
ants and other little creatures, and was sometimes very affectionate. But on other
occasions, and without the slightest warning, he would ignore us, tease us or punish us in
a somewhat sadistic way.
I felt much closer to my mother, who was attractive, gifted and charming. I was very
proud of her, indeed she was something of a goddess to me. She had a lovely soprano voice,
painted well and was the centre of every party. The only complaint I had against her was
that far too often we were left in the care of our nanny and later, in that of our
governess. As a result; though I adored my mother, our cook, Milli, was my closest friend
and the person I went to for sympathy and comfort. She had endless patience and was a
willing audience when, dressed in my mother's shawls, I danced or acted under my 'stage
name' of Bobrika Jenjar.
I worshipped my mother and could not understand why some times she let me down, as when
she forgot a promise to take me out or discussed with her friends a poem I had been too
shy to give her and had hidden under her pillow.
Besides my parents there was my sister Traute, a year older than I, and also my sister
Dorle who was nine years younger.
It is not for me to say what I was like as a child but I can quote from a letter my
mother wrote me on my sixtieth birthday. She confessed that when I was born on 20 January
1910, I was a great disappointment as my parents had been hoping for a boy. I was
christened Friederike, the name given to every second daughter in my mother's family. To
this was added Victoria, apparently the hope was that I would be a peace-loving champion.
My father, unable to reconcile himself to the fact that I was a girl, called me Fritz,
treated me as if I were a son and encouraged me to wear boy's clothes.
According to my mother I was not afraid of anything, except a mythical personage called
'Bubutz', whom Milli had invented to keep me in order. I had, it seems, a passion for
flowers, in particular for violets and every effort was made to give me a plant for my
birthday, since in my eyes no other present could compare with it. I loved music and could
sight-read before I knew my alphabet; if I were hurt I would ask for some Chopin to be
played to relieve my pain. In our family it was natural to be musical for everyone sang or
played some instrument and even the servants sang Slavonic folk songs in counterpoint.
At school I learned quickly and apparently I was so conscientious about my homework
that I would even ask to leave a party to finish it in time for next day's class.
What I myself remember best was how Peter and I would slip out of the Villa Friederike
after dinner and lie in a meadow, looking at the stars and discussing what we would do
when we were grown-up. For both of us this meant exploring various countries and
discovering new animals. In a way our dreams have come true for Peter has settled in
Alberta, Canada and for the last forty years I have lived in Kenya.
