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I almost can't talk because
tonight just been for me,
and I'm sure everyone sitting here and watching
from home, one of the most inspirational,
fascinating and humbling experiences.
I've watched and listened to
the most incredible human beings,
determined to make a difference to animals
lives. So many animals who suffer so
very deeply at man's hands. The people who
we've seen tonight are truly savior's
and they are people who bring into our hearts
the knowledge that we can all do something.
No one is helpless. I always like to go back
to the root, the beginnings of things. It has been touched on this evening about
making the film 'Born Free', which my husband Bill and I went out
to Kenya to do in 1964, and
so my first person I would like to name
was the inspiration behind
the future that lay ahead, unkown at that time
for Bill and myself, and that was George Adamson.
George Adamson, the true and only real father of
lions, who has touched the hearts of
so many people, I can't imagine how many, with his modesty,
his knowledge, his unselfishness,
and she's truthfulness to himself. And that's one of the lessons
I believe that we learned; you must be true
to what you feel in your heart ,and even if you make a million mistakes
and your sorry for them, if you follow your heart you can't go wrong.
The second person can I would like to name is my husband,
because we went into this new life
together holding hands
physically and spiritually. I believe that without
him, I probably could not have carried on/
But of course, during the time that followed,
which before and after his death
nineteen years ago the third person
I would like to mention is our eldest son, Will,
who was carried the work Born Free into dimensions
and perspectives that we had never dreamed of because our passion,
and still is mine today, and even stronger than it was at the beginning,
is captivity of wild animals in zoos
and circuses, all captivity of wild animals is
deeply shocking, and unforgivable really, in my view.
What is a wild animal? It's an animal
that has to leave in the wild to be its true self,
and I thank, first of all, the wonderful team
at Born Free, some of whom have been with us almost from the beginning,
one person from the beginning actually, who
with their loyalty, their commitment, their disappointments,
which inevitably come, their sadness when we fail,
which we obviously will sometimes, but sometimes
those beautiful successes that you have which
means its all been worthwhile. Even out of a million animals, you've helped 20,
you've helped 20, and that's and achievement
of a kind and certainly one for that animal.
So I can tell you how
humbled I feel to accept this
amazing award because we need to be told,
we or need to be drawn together into the family of humans and animals.
We shouldn't think of them and us, it's not like that.
It's about all of us living in this world, which is a very difficult one
to live in for everyone at the moment, so lets all do
whatever we can to help each other to help the animals
and to save what is left of our beautiful beautiful planet.
Thank you.
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