Patricia Cavendish O’Neill - A Chimpanzee in the Wine Cellar

Description

In Kenya, my life was saved twice by my lioness Tana and in South Africa once again my life was saved by wild animals, this time by my baboons. I will live in eternal gratitude for these animals and the love they have shown me.

The extraordinary life of heiress Pat Cavendish ONeill took a turn for the unexpected when she moved from Kenya to settle on a Cape farm in 1968. Here Pat found a new channel for her remarkable gift with animals: she became one of South Africas first woman racehorse trainers. As always, Pat and her famous mother attracted a colourful international audience into their extremely lavish lifestyle and the two woman would regularly fly to Australia to bid on some of the worlds finest fillies and colts. Broadlands Stud went from glory to glory in racing circles.

Pats first book, A Lion in the Bedroom , described how, after a life of flitting around the world from bases in the South of France and the Bahamas, she found her place in the world in Kenya when she was given a lion cub to raise. In the Rift Valley a pet gazelle accompanied her lioness on glamorous safaris, and in South Africa the pampered racehorses of Broadlands shared their space with a menagerie of equally beloved baboons, vervet monkeys, various farm animals saved from their fate, cats, parrots and at one point 35 dogs. But queen of the farm, a rescued chimpanzee named Kalu has found her way deepest into Pats heart.

A Chimpanzee in the Wine Cellar is rich in anecdotes that will make you laugh and cry. Now in her late eighties, Pat leads a very different life from the enormous wealth into which she was born, yet she still remains true to her first love of animals.

Title Page

A Chimpanzee in the Wine Cellar

Pat Cavendish ONeill

JONATHAN BALL PUBLISHERS

JOHANNESBURG & CAPE TOWN

Dedication

I would like to dedicate this book to some very special friends without whose wonderful help and generosity I would not be living at Broadlands today surrounded by my beloved animals. To the memory of Graham Beck and to that wonderful young man Antony Beck and his mother Rhona; to Chris Mauerberger, Sheila Southey and John Kalmanson, you are in my prayers every night. To my wonderful staff, with their loving support, and last but not least to Checkers Somerset West, whose past-sell-by-date food keeps my dogs, monkeys, goats, pigs and cattle well fed!

EARLY DAYS

EARLY DAYS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER

I have had the most incredible life, thanks to the most wonderful mother in the world, two incredible brothers and a glorious lioness called Tana who came to me as a newborn cub with her eyes still closed. Her mother had been shot down in the Tana River District and as I was well known as a compulsive rescuer of lost and injured animals I was presented with this tiny orphaned cub the moment I touched down in Nairobi to visit my younger brother Caryll. I was living in France at this time, but Tana changed all that very quickly and Kenya became my home.

My beloved and most understanding mother then bought me a farm, called Ol Orion. It was a beautiful old colonial rambling bungalow with a magnificent garden and incredible views, and it was here that I felt I had found my place in the world. The farm bordered onto the Ngong Hills and nature reserve overlooking the Rift Valley. The area was called Karen after Karen Blixen, who wrote the book Out Of Africa . This period of my life will forever remain the most treasured one and the memory of my lioness Tana the most valued.

Tana was brought up on my bed, with her bottles, amidst all my dogs. I house-trained her the same way as the dogs, with her nose being rubbed into whatever mess she made inside, followed by a firm smack. She became totally house trained and over the next seven years slept on my bed alongside all the dogs and Joseph my beloved chimp, her head on the pillow beside mine, breathing short lion puffs into my ear. Tana was on my bed so often that my first book ended up being called A Lion in the Bedroom . The book was a bestseller in three countries and movie rights were optioned by a German company who came out to the farm one day for lunch and told me they were going to go ahead with the film. They gave me a contract to sign, which I did stupidly, as this handed over lifetime rights to the film, and to this day they have never made it, despite the fact that the renowned British actor Dominic West was originally standing by to play the role of my lover, Stan Lawrence Brown. The book ends when I left Kenya to live in South Africa, which is where this book more or less begins.

My life in South Africa has been very different. Apart from the many tragedies, there have also been so many magical moments. In Kenya, my life was saved twice by my lioness Tana and in South Africa once again my life was saved by wild animals, this time by my baboons. I will always live in eternal gratitude for these animals and the love they have shown me.

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER

I was born in England, in 1925. My father was General Frederick Cavendish and at the time he was Commanding General at Aldershot in Hampshire and a highly decorated cavalry officer. He was also a 10-goal polo player and he lived his life upon a horse. I quickly followed in his footsteps and could ride before I could walk. I rode my first steeplechase at the age of six, on one of his hunters. My legs were too short and my feet too small for stirrups, so he used to slip my feet into the leather straps above the stirrups and send me on my way.

His elder brother, Harry Cavendish, inherited the family title of Lord Waterpark, one of the Devonshire titles. As Uncle Harry had no children of his own, the title has now passed on to my brother Caryll. Our uncle was a famous explorer; he went across America with Buffalo Bill and later came through Africa. Cavendish Square, the shopping mall in Cape Town, was named after him.

My mother Enid was Australian, from the famous Lindeman Wine family. Her grandfather had come from England and bought part of the Hunter Valley, where he planted the first vineyards in Australia. My mother at one time was the sole owner of Lindeman Wines.

My mothers first husband was an American called Roderick Cameron, whose family originally came from Scotland and settled in the United States. They had clipper ships that traded with Australia and it was on one of these visits that Roderick Cameron met and fell in love with the beautiful Lindeman daughter and wanted to marry her. He was in his late thirties at the time and my grandmother, disapproving of the age difference as my mother was only 19, made him wait till she was 21.

They married in Australia in 1913 and after this Roderick took his bride to New York. They owned the Cameron Building at 185 Madison Avenue. My mother soon became a famous beauty and people used to queue to watch her arrivals and departures. In November of that same year she had a son whom she named Roderick William Cameron, known to us all as Rory, and who was later to become world famous for his infinity swimming pool design amongst other things.

Roderick Cameron died of cancer at the age of 43, leaving his young widow Enid and nine-month-old son. By this time World War I had broken out and my mother, who was never one to shy away from danger, went to France. There she bought and equipped an ambulance, which she drove herself in the frontlines.

During this time she and Rory stayed at the British Embassy in Paris. Lord Derby was the Ambassador and one of his aides threatened to commit suicide if my mother did not marry him. Lord Derby, trying to prevent the havoc my beautiful mother was creating, decided to introduce her to a famous young cavalry officer who was a colonel at the time this was Frederick Cavendish. Soon after meeting they were married and when the war ended in 1918 he was sent to Egypt as commander of his regiment. Here my mothers beauty once again caused an uproar amongst the officers. In the 1920s and 1930s she was considered one of the six most beautiful women in the world.