Sally Peters

In the Middle of the Jungle

This is a wild nature story

Well then, dead in the middle of the jungle was an Edwardian town house of three storeys. All around it was concrete. It was about half-a-mile from Chelsea and you couldn't see the rest of London for all the bricks. In the charming bedsit on the top floor was an exotic orchid., blooming away despite the jungle.

You could have swiped us semi-conscious with a gardenia window-box when we met the orchid. She was SALLY PETERS. She had never been in a jungle before, she had come from a quiet country town to work as a secretary in London. The hoots of the taxis were like the roars of lions, but Sally was blooming all the same. Well, she had coped with whistling wolves for years, so roaring lions were no problem.

"I could eat them for breakfast," she said.

The first lion-eating orchid of all time.