WHERE do you start in an interview with Virginia McKenna, glamorous film star, widow of a talented Geordie, passionate conservationist and, it turns out, riveting raconteur?

Since Virginia is best known for the 1966 hit film Born Free, in which she and husband Bill Travers played conservationists Joy and George Adamson, it seems only right to begin with a lion.

Not Elsa, the orphaned lioness whose story was told in Born Free, but Dolo, who has just been released from a life of misery in Ethiopia, which Virginia visited in her role as founder of the Born Free Foundation.

“He had been kept in a shed for four years with a chain round his neck and because of the chain rubbing he has no mane,” says Virginia.

“The villagers said they liked to have him there because every morning he would roar and wake them up.”

This was a king of the jungle doing a cockerel’s job and you will be glad to know that the poor living alarm clock is now one of the first residents of a new animal rescue centre, set up by the Born Free Foundation just outside Addis Ababa.

“We never buy animals because we don’t want them to be replaced by another one,” Virginia explains.

“We were asked for help by the Ethiopian wildlife organisation who will take action in these cases but had nowhere to put the rescued animals.

“We said we’d really like to build a rescue centre and we’ve had terrific support from the government there who have given us the most fantastic 200 acres of land.

“It’s a wonderful place where we are going to be able to bring some very unfortunate animals to live out the rest of their days in comfort.

“People will also be able to visit the centre and learn about the animals while walking freely in beautiful, peaceful surroundings.”

Virginia, who is speaking to me from her garden chalet in Sussex which doubles as her office, explains that the Born Free Foundation is concerned both with animals in captivity and those in the wild.

“We’ve supported a project in the wild there for about 18 years to protect the Ethiopian wolf.

“There are just over 400 in the wild and they live 14,000ft up in the Bale Mountains. When I was there we saw 11 so we were thrilled.”

You can see photographs of these beautiful, fox-like creatures on the website – www.bornfree.org.uk – along with one of Dolo.

Virginia will be 80 next month but you really wouldn’t guess. Her voice, as well as the crystal qualities of a screen star of the 1950s and 60s, betrays her campaigning zeal.

Of tourism, she says: “I think it’s a very good thing but it has to be handled very carefully. One of the things I’m totally opposed to is when the drivers (on safari) go off road.

“One driver will tell another on his walkie talkie that there’s a leopard under a tree so everyone belts off to get there as quickly as possible.

“But you have to stick to the road otherwise you destroy the whole environment. It’s all about education and being sensitive.”