Born Free pilgrim makes an emotional return to Africa

Martin Clarke, pictured with his wife Helen, is going back to the 'Born Free' camp in Africa after 32 years.

By TARA GREAVES

Environment correspondent

It was more of a pilgrimage than a holiday for Norfolk man Martin Clarke, who made an emotional return trip to Kenya, where he worked with murdered Born Free writer Joy Adamson more than 30 years ago.

For a year, Mr Clarke lived in the wilds of the Shaba National Reserve helping to raise an orphaned leopard cub called Penny alongside the inspirational naturalist and author, who was killed at the camp in 1980 by one of her former employees.

She is perhaps best known for the book about her work with Elsa the lion, which was turned into the hit film starring Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers.

As reported in the EDP, Mr Clarke, who features in another of Mrs Adamson's books about Penny, was invited back to the camp - which has been transformed into a luxury tented lodge - by the new owners.

"I felt 101 emotions as my feet touched the ground of the airstrip, which I actually helped to clear of rocks in 1977. They came crashing through me," he said.

"When we arrived at the lodge everything felt very different, but as we sat at the bar, the manager Jamie pointed out a clump of trees where our original camp was and I literally ran across and could see where the old entrance road was and I thought 'yes, that's it'."

The luxurious lodge is very different to the basic camp Mr Clarke lived in and where he spent many hours teaching Penny how to become a wild animal again.

"When I was there in the 1970s, the park was very new and so there wasn't any game, just antelope, but on our first night this time we saw cheetahs come by the camp and then a herd of elephants followed by 70 zebras," he said.

"They said they had put us in a particular tent because weeks before a lioness had brought her cubs on the verandah and put them on the couch. They kept people away from there for a couple of days and she took off again.

"When I was there before you could just wander around, but it isn't safe to do so now. As we walked back to our tent we heard elephants crashing around nearby and water buffalo walking along the path, and at night lions were calling to each other across the park."

Mr Clarke and his wife Helen, from Rockland St Mary, were invited to the lodge, known as Joy's Camp, by Stefano Cheli and Liz Peacock, who run a company specialising in upmarket safaris.

While visiting, he gave a series of talks to other visitors about his time helping Penny and working with Mrs Adamson. The talks were so successful it might become an annual adventure.

"I was apprehensive at first, but the camp is very conservation-minded and the fact it is there means that the animals and the park itself has a future," he said.

He was also able to recreate several of the photographs he took in the 1970s, including one of Penny's Ridge where he used to take the young leopard.

He added: "I was in the car one day and hearing the guides talking over the radio reporting where they all were and there was a stream of Swahili followed by the words 'Martin's Corner'. This was named after me when I managed to sink the land cruiser I was driving in mud up to its bonnet. It took two days to pull it out. Joy called it that on a map in her book and it's lovely that it is still known as that."

Although Penny, who was successfully returned to the wild, has long since died, Mr Clarke hopes if he does go on follow-up trips that he might spot some of her descendents.