Featured on The Book Show on Sky Arts on 19 March 2009.

The much-loved actress recalls her life and charitable conservation work. Part of the proceeds from each book sold will go to support Born Free Foundation campaigns.

Synopsis

Virginia McKenna starred in some of the most popular and enduring movies of our time, among them Carve Her Name With Pride, A Town Like Alice and Born Free, in which she played opposite her husband, Bill Travers. After Born Free both actors were at the peak of their careers but the film and all it still stands for changed their lives. Its powerful message stayed with them and so began a worldwide campaign to save animals from commercial exploitation, "imprisonment" in zoos and loss of their natural habitat.

At the heart of this book is a cry for change in attitude - to respect nature and all that it provides. Virginia McKenna has pushed aside the glamour of movie stardom, the West End and Broadway where she starred in major shows like The King and I and A Little Night Music. Instead she focuses relentlessly on her personal mission with the Born Free Foundation or the plight of orphaned children across the world.

Through the prism of memory a lifetime of experiences, ecstatic, amusing or tragic have flooded back in the form of anecdotes, meditations and poems to form this book.

This book will inspire anyone who cares about the future of the planet and all the creatures dependent on it, including human beings.

Part of the proceeds from each book sold will go to support Born Free Foundation campaigns.

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