When Obiter received an email headed ‘The Charity Lawyer Who Rides to the Rescue on an Elephant’ we just had to read on. Was this an example of a solicitor taking green transportation to the extreme? Not quite. It turned out to be about Felix Appelbe, former head of private client and now consultant at London firm Ambrose Appelbe. He is one of the founding trustees of charity Save the Elephants, the subject of an amazing Wednesday evening BBC1 documentary The Secret Life of Elephants. It began when Appelbe was on safari and found himself stranded for a few days with elephant expert Ian Douglas Hamilton. Applebe was impressed by Douglas Hamilton’s work with the elephants, and during the night he had a dream of how more could be done by setting up a charity. In the morning he told Douglas Hamilton about the vision. An American on the same trip provided funds to start the ball rolling and, as they say, the rest is history.