Ultimate Guide To Africa January 2015 | Page 47

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Ultimate guide to Africa - for Luxury Travel

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T

he extraordinary life of heiress Pat
Cavendish O’Neill took a turn for the
unexpected when she moved from
Kenya to settle on a Cape farm in 1968.
Here she found a new channel for her
remarkable gift with animals: she became
one of South Africa’s first female racehorse
trainers. As always, Cavendish O’Neill and
her famous mother attracted a colourful
international audience into their extremely
lavish lifestyle, and the two women would
regularly fly to Australia to bid on some of
the world’s finest fillies and colts.
Cavendish O’Neill’s 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 loved baboons, vervet
monkeys, various farm animals saved from
their fate, cats, parrots and – at one point 35 dogs. But a rescued chimpanzee named
Kalu found her way deepest into Cavendish
O’Neill’s heart.
A Chimpanzee in the Wine Cellar is rich
in anecdotes that will make you laugh and
cry. Now in her late eighties, O’Neill leads
a very different life from the enormous
wealth into which she was born, yet she still
remains true to her first love: animals.
For more information visit
www.jonathanball.co.za

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