Meet a living “Long Victorian” – born 1832

Jonathan the giant Seychelles tortoise was born c.1832 (perhaps earlier) and, wonderful to say, he’s is still going strong.

Six years ago Joe Hollins became the first permanent vet on the island of St Helena, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Here he looked after the oldest known land animal in the world, a 184-year-old giant tortoise

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36302278

The likely year of Jonathan’s birth, 1832, was also the year that Lewis Carroll (author of Alice in Wonderland) and Louisa May Alcott (author of Little Women) were born. It is the period in history that two great novels were set – George Eliot’s Middlemarch and Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables.

[bad pun alert!]

If only Jonathan could speak, imagine the wisdom he might have tortoise.

 

Pauses for applause . . . 

long cold silence . . . 

“I’ll get my coat”.