SUNDERLAND ECHO (UK) 30 May 05 Year-long walkabout over for Tilly the tortoise
Teacher Bernie Gingell gave up hope after her pet tortoise Tilly vanished from her garden.
That was until the roaming reptile turned up in her neighbour's garden – almost a year to the day since she went missing.
Now Tilly is reunited with her twin sister Tammy, much to the delight of Bernie and children at her school, St John Boste RC Primary in Oxclose, Washington.
It was a special pleasure for the youngsters because although Bernie had told them about Tilly and Tammy, last Friday was the first time they had actually seen them.
Bernie, 45, explained how her husband Kevin, 48, a firefighter, and three sons shelled out for the two tortoises as a birthday treat.
"I got them on my birthday last April. I've always loved tortoises but I couldn't have one as a little girl," she said.
"By the time I was an adult they became too expensive because they don't import them any more.
"Last year my husband, Kev, and three sons decided to surprise me and went on the internet to find some breeder in our country.
"They arranged to buy two baby tortoises from the closest breeder, which was in Cheshire, and my husband travelled to get them.
"I told the children all about them and they were very excited, although they were too young at the time to bring them into school.
"But after three weeks Tilly ran away. They were in a pen in the back garden and she must have burrowed underneath," said Bernie, of Neale Street, Fulwell.
"We searched for her and had all the neighbours searching. We put pictures and notices on the neighbours' doors but there was no trace.
"I had to tell the children in class that she had gone missing. They were really sad, even though they hadn't seen the tortoises.
"We looked for months and months and I eventually thought a seagull must have picked her up and taken her away. We gave up hope."
But it seems as if Tilly had no intention of disappearing for ever, as Bernie discovered.
"On Wednesday a neighbour had a visitor in his garden. He was sitting and smoking his pipe and said: 'I didn't think you had a tortoise.'
"My neighbour thought it must be Tammy so he knocked on the window to see if she'd escaped, but my son Paul said she hadn't and she was safe.
"My neighbour Bill said: 'I think I've found the long-lost Tilly.'
"When I got home from school Paul told me and I was absolutely astonished. I felt quite emotional. I was over the moon.
"I put him back with Tammy and they gelled together lovely. They were both the same size when Tilly went missing.
"Tammy didn't hibernate and was fed through the winter so she's the big one now.
"I think Tilly must have been strolling about from May to September and then hibernated.
"She's tiny – she obviously needs feeding. When I showed her to my husband he thought I'd put an ornament in the box."
She said her class was overjoyed to see the two tortoises and she was having to show them round the school – and to parents when they came to pick up their children.
Year-long walkabout over for Tilly the tortoise