Why there’s no cuddlier pet than a tortoise

(If you’re not in a hurry for your hugs)

WhEN roald Dahl visited the London flat of his eldest daughter in the 1970s, he saw her talking to a downstairs neighbour who had a pet tortoise. ‘I stood leaning over the balcony,’ he later explained in a university lecture, ‘staring at Mrs Shrimpton’s tortoise in his box. And quite automatically my mind began to wiggle around with a story about this tortoise . . .’

So the seeds that would one day sprout into his delightful story Esio trot were sown.

on New Year’s Day, 25 years after the book was first published, the BBC screened its adaptation by richard Curtis, writer of Four Weddings And A Funeral, Notting hill and Love Actually. Dustin hoffman and Judi Dench played Mr hoppy and Mrs Silver, two neighbours who fall in love, thanks to a tortoise.

Mr hoppy wins Mrs Silver’s heart by seeming to make her pet tortoise grow bigger.

When she laments the fact that Alfie, the apple of her eye, is ‘such a tiny wee fellow’, Mr hoppy writes some mysterious, seemingly nonsense words on a piece of paper and instructs her to read them to her tortoise three times a day: Esio trot, esio trot, Teg reggib reggib! Emoc no, esio trot, Worg pu, ffup pu, toohs pu! Mr hoppy explains that it’s in tortoise language: ‘tortoises are very backwards creatures. therefore they can only understand words that are written backwards. that’s obvious, isn’t it?’

then he borrows lots of tortoises from various pet shops and swaps Alfie with progressively bigger ones over the coming weeks. he succeeds with his illusion and Mrs Silver is delighted:

‘You really are the most wonderful man I’ve ever met! You can do anything! Come in at once and let me make you a cup of tea.’

Mr hoppy seizes the moment to propose and they live happily ever after, with the surrogate Alfie. (In the book, the original Alfie finds a happy home with a girl called roberta Squibb.)

hoffman and Dench are fine actors but, for me, the real stars of the show were the hardshelled reptiles who played Alfie and his successors. I watched it, you see, with my own beloved tortoise, Daphne.

Indeed, now animal welfare experts fear that the scene-stealing animals will encourage demand for pet tortoises, who might end up neglected.

But while Esio trot is set at a time when, as roald Dahl explains in his author’s note, ‘anyone could go out and buy a nice little tortoise from a pet shop’, today tortoises are harder to come by.

Because the number in the wild was falling fast, in 1984 the Eu banned the import of wild-caught Mediterranean tortoises, and in 1999 it banned a further 18 species, which explains why they have become unusual pets.

Daphne, I hasten to add, is captive-bred, which gives her the sweet quirk of being so trusting that she sleeps with her limbs carelessly protruding from her shell instead of protectively tucked up inside.

It does, however, mean that, unlike Mrs Silver, I am too anxious to leave my tortoise on the terrace unsupervised, as she wouldn’t have a clue what to do if a bird swooped down for a snack.

Daphne entered my life two years ago, when my husband offered to buy me a tortoise for a birthday present. It might seem like an eccentric gift, but I had longed for another tortoise ever since the one I had when I was a child didn’t wake up from hibernation one year.

MY CHILDHOOD tortoise, Fred, had been a foundling, discovered on my granny’s doorstep in a shoebox; Daphne was bought from an exotic pet shop in Essex.

She caught my eye when she stopped still in the middle of a crowded tank, turned her wrinkled neck to look straight at me and then, oh- so- casually, yawned. She’s been a stalwart companion ever since.

unlike Alfie, who resides on Mrs Silver’s terrace, Daphne lives in our flat. She has her own glass tank, with heat and uV lamps, but she’s free to roam around.

At first this provoked an intense fear of accidentally treading on her — she is still a baby and, as Mrs Silver would say, ‘so titchy’ — but luckily tortoises are creatures of habit, and it didn’t take long for Daphne to establish her favourite haunts. If she’s not in her tank, she can be found under the radiator, the sofa, or by the plugs, though occasionally we find her nestled in a shoe or lodged beside the computer.

the charm of the tortoise is subtle. those who haven’t spent much time with them could be forgiven for thinking of tortoises as little more than ornate rocks, which occasionally move, a little, very slowly.

Daphne never bounds towards me, licking my face with excitement. She won’t play fetch or bark at intruders, and she has no silky soft fur or mewling purr. Instead, she yawns and shows her tiny bright pink tongue, otherwise hidden in her dinosaur head.

her shows of affection are rare, but all the more special for being so. For instance, one hungover Sunday, my husband and I were feeling so fragile that all we could do that afternoon was lie down on the floor and doze off.

through the fog of sleep, I heard a scraping sound and then a soft padding. I opened an eye to see Daphne treading towards us. She then burrowed, rather ticklishly, just above my shoulder, where she went to sleep, too.

Perhaps the time when I was most glad of Daphne’s companionship was three weeks before my baby was due to arrive. I woke up with what I thought might be contractions. It was four in the morning, and they were coming every half hour or so. unable to fall back asleep, I heaved myself out of bed and lay on the sofa with a cup of tea. My head was abuzz with excitement. Was the baby really on its way?

I was startled out of my thoughts by the sound of a soft tread as Daphne crept across the carpet.

She stopped beside the sofa and peered up at me with what seemed a look of reassurance. Maybe she could sense my excitement, that everything was about to change, or perhaps she had some instinct about the new life on its way.

I got up to slice her some cucumber and relaxed a little as I watched her eat. the contractions went away by lunchtime, a false alarm.

the baby arrived two weeks later, and while I don’t think my daughter has yet registered the tortoise, Daphne sometimes throws us a baleful look after an especially noisy wail.

I’ve often thought about Esio trot during my time with Daphne. I wonder what happened next. Did looking after a tortoise inspire the hoppys, like us, to expand their family? I suspect they were too old for babies, but they might have acquired more pets.

Perhaps next year richard Curtis could be persuaded to write a sequel.