Sharon and the lions

Sharon was born and brought up in Africa. When she was a toddler her father, Eric, worked as an engineer for East African Railways and the family lived in Kenya.

Sharon's father had the job of laying out the route for new railways and this meant that the family would travel with him as he journeyed literally to the end of the line to take the observations and make the plans that would decide the route of the expanding rail system. The family lived in a special carriage that was part of the engineering train and they journeyed far into the bush.

Sharon was a toddler in the late 1950s and she remembers the lions – at a time when they were not confined in game reserves and zoos.

“We used sit or lie in our bunks at night in our specially-adapted carriage and just hear the lions grunting as they prowled around outside. This is one of my most vivid childhood memories. It sounded like a very deep gurgling noise and it went on all night long.

“I wasn't frightened as I was used to it. They never came right up to our outside areas, like the balconies we had at the sides and back of the carriage. But they were there all through the night. We new they never came onto the actual carriage but they left plenty of poop evidence of where they had been prowling. In the morning there were great big plops everywhere. So you could see where they had been very easily because of their big piles of poo.

“Of course the noise used to wake me up in the night but I wasn't frightened because I knew they never came near me. The noise was just part of life, really. During the day we didn't see them. It was too hot and they would lie in shaded areas. They only used to prowl about at night when it was cool and there was no sun.

“People often say that lions roar but it wasn't like that. It was just a grunting, very deep and low. I dare say if I had gone out walking about they would have eaten me. But I never did.”

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