A postcard shows Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret paying a visit to the London Zoo and meeting the Ming the Panda in 1939. FILE PHOTOS

By this time Britain and Germany were at war and visits to see Ming became a reminder of normality and a morale-booster for British children.

Chinese poet and author Chiang Yee, living in London, visited the zoo and wrote on the crowds flocking to see Ming, who had rapidly become a celebrity.

"There were rows and rows of them, especially children, round her house, wanting to shake hands with her and to cuddle her," he wrote in an illustrated book called "The Story of Ming."

Amongst those children were a couple of Royal Princesses – Elizabeth, destined to be Queen Elizabeth II of England, and her younger sister, Margaret.

Press reports at the time showed the Royal children being escorted inside Ming's compound, tickling the giant panda's tummy.

Sadly, Sung died in 1939 and Tang in the spring of 1940. At the outbreak of the war Ming was evacuated to Whipsnade Zoo, but made repeated return trips to ZSL London Zoo in Regents Park.

Ming survived most of the war, but towards the end of her life her hair began to fall out, and she died of unexplained causes at the end of 1944.

It would be understating it to say the nation mourned the loss of Ming the Giant Panda.

The August Times of London newspaper, no less, ran an obituary of Ming, virtually unheard of at the time when only the deaths of the great and the good, as well as the not-so-good, graced its obituary columns.

According to the The Times. "She could die happy in the knowledge that she gladdened the universal heart, and even in the stress of war, her death should not go unnoticed."

To contact the writer: chris@mail.chinadailyuk.com