He predated Queen Victoria and the abolition of slavery in the UK and is still going strong… but then life is slow for Jonathan Tortoise on St Helena.
JT, as we’ll presumptuously call him, is closing in at half a mile an hour on his 192nd birthday at the end of the year.
When the good islanders of the second remotest habitable settlement in the world after Tristan da Cunha will treat him to a birthday feast.
Of cabbage, lettuce, apples, bananas, guavas and maybe the secret of eternal life, monkey’s ears herbs.
Now my own little nutritionist at home has been trying to get me off my morning diet of bagels and tea so JT’s diet might be the way.
Two world wars, a Moon landing and Taylor Swift
Of course, having lived such a long life JT, observers have naturally chronicled everything that he would have seen.
The industrial revolution, two world wars, the rise and fall of communism, Man walking on the Moon and Taylor Swift.
Although living on a tiny British outcrop 3329 miles west of South Africa he probably only heard of such seismic events.
JT is, in truth, more interested in his tortoise buddies on the isle and one in particular Fredericka.
Who legend has it was only discovered to be male years later leading to suggestions that JT is gay.
That’s just not croquet
Now it would be a mistake to think that JT might be slowing up and is past his shell-life because he is 192.
But the old rogue still likes to cause mischief, particularly disrupting the tennis and croquet games on the island.
Now you would think with a tortoise at the age of 192 the clock must be ticking.
And that we’ll need to get out there to see JT while we can.
And that is what we were planning back in 2021 and mark the bicentenary of Napoleon Bonaparte’s death on the British colony.
Only for Covid to close down travel around the world.
Of course, the virus thankfully could not touch the indestructible JT.
St Helena’s biggest celeb
And now that we have all come out the other side we’ve all got the chance again to come out and meet St Helena’s biggest celebrity.
So if you want to take in the ultimate in slow tourism then he’s not going anywhere.
Life is slow for Jonathan Tortoise on St Helena.