TV for LONDON

Christian, the lion who lived in my London living room He travelled by Bentley, ate in fine London restaurants and spent his days lounging in a furniture shop. The story of Christian the pet lion – and his eventual release into the wild – is as moving as it is incredible. The furniture shop was on the King’s Road in London. It sold tables, wardrobes, chairs and desks – but anybody peering through its plate-glass window on a Sunday might have noticed something rather more unusual. Amid all the pine and oak, stretched out languidly on a bench, there was a lion. And it wasn’t stuffed. Scroll down for more… Tiger feet: Christian enjoyed living in swinging London “Christian used to lie beside me while I did the accounts at weekends,” remembers Jennifer Mary Taylor, who worked there. “And every so often, if I’d ignored him for too long, he’d sock me across the head with one of his great big paws. “He was very loving and affectionate – he liked to stand and put his paws on your shoulders. But he was…”, she pauses. “I mean, he was a lion. Does that sound silly?” Christian the lion (named by someone with a Biblical sense of humour) arrived in Chelsea at a time when the King’s Road – home to Mick Jagger – was the very heart of the Swinging Sixties. For a year, the Big Cat was part of it all, cruising the streets in the back of a Bentley, popping in for lunch at Casserole, a local restaurant, even posing for a Biba fashion advert. He eventually grew too big to be kept as a pet …