Tommy Goes Home

The story of a German family who bought a lion called Tommy in Germany and took it overland from West Germany, through Belgium, France, Spain and Portugal, where they took a ship to Angola which had just erupted into civil war. Their purpose was to take Tommy home to Africa, which they did, but in the process nearly did not survive. Take Manfred Forster, a tough German who as a child fought in the Battle for Berlin, was brought up in communist East Germany and escaped only hours before movement was stopped by the building of the Berlin wall. Take his wife Karen, their teenage sons, Frank and Uwe and their 8-year-old daughter Gabriella. Toss them in with dogs, parrots, assorted livestock and Tommy, a half grown lion bought from a German lion park. Travelling in an old Land-Rover and a beaten up Volksie, they head overland from West Germany, through Spain and Portugal, and then to Angola by ship. On land again through Angola and into Portugal just as it erupts into military and civil unrest, leaving behind Angola as its being ripped apart by tribal and Marxist private armies scrambling for the spoils of their late colonial masters.