A tribute to David Wynne-Morgan

Dame Virginia McKenna and Will Travers OBE © Ranald Mackechnie

It is with deep sadness that Virginia and I learned of David’s passing. Our profound sympathies are with his widow Karin.

Virginia remembers: “David first met Bill and I when he was a journalist and, by great good fortune, had been asked to cover the making of the film Born Free. David was passionate about nature and also lived life to the full, holding the highest positions in the world of PR and marketing.

“Once, many, many years ago, he joined Bill and I on a boat we’d hired for a few days, sailing in the Mediterranean. The weather was unkind, but the trip was truly lovely.

“As the decades passed, we slightly lost touch and then, one day, I was at an event which concluded with me signing copies of my autobiography The Life in My Years. There was a little queue of people and then a hand pushed a copy in front of me and a voice said, ‘Hello Ginny’. It was David.”

Will recalls: “David was invited to join the Board of Born Free, bringing with him all his experience from the world of business and public relations. I really enjoyed the times I would meet him for a coffee in London where we would consider the increasingly perilous state of our planet. He would always offer to help the Foundation whenever he could. He had remarkable reserves of energy and, for many years, travelled monthly to the Far East to look after clients – a schedule that would have exhausted someone half his age.

“Even though he retired from the Born Free Board some years ago, he stayed connected, and only a few weeks ago I sent David a copy of Born Free’s relatively new 5-Year-Strategy. His wife, Karin, told me that he’d appreciated the document as he was always deeply interested in the future of the natural world.”

We shall miss David. He is a loss to us all.

Virginia McKenna and Will Travers