They came out having bought a lion cub.
They named him Christian. He lived with them on the King’s Road in Chelsea, in the basement of the furniture shop where they worked. A local minister let them exercise him in a church graveyard nearby.
But Christian kept growing. A lion could not stay in London forever.
Then, by chance, Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna, the stars of the film Born Free, came into the shop and met Christian. They suggested a man who might help: George Adamson, the famous conservationist who worked with lions in Kenya.
Adamson agreed. Christian was flown to Kenya, and Adamson began teaching him how to live as a wild lion.
Time passed, and John and Ace returned to Kenya to visit their old friend. Adamson warned them that Christian might not remember them.
In the video, the lion approaches slowly, carefully.
Then he recognizes them.
He leaps up, stands on his hind legs, wraps his front legs around their shoulders and nuzzles their faces, like a big, furry hug.
“He ran towards us, threw himself onto us, knocked us over and hugged us, with his paws on our shoulders,” John remembered.
The film was made in the early 1970s, but decades later, when the reunion was posted on YouTube, it became a worldwide sensation.
When John returned to Kenya one last time, Christian was a big, wild lion with a pride of his own. But he never forgot the two friends who loved him.
Do you believe animals never forget the people who love them? Share this with an animal lover.