Bill Heaney
Lest you think I shot this cheetah when last I was in Africa, please don’t believe that for a minute. I love animals and I hate zoos and other places of confinement for them. I think it’s cruel and I am also very much against hunting. Some folk thought when they didn’t see the whole of this picture that my good friend Charlie the Cheetah whom I met in Kenya was a trophy I planned to take home with me. Not a bit of it. He and his pals were very much alive and I was just giving him a friendly pat on the neck. I may have been wearing Army fatigues at the time but I wasn’t carrying a weapon apart from the usual notebook and pen. And a camera, of course. I don’t want people thinking I’m anything like the US dentist who took great pleasure shooting a magnificent lion for sport.
Top picture: Bill with reporters from Scottish newspapers visiting the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders at Nanyuki in Kenya.