Remembering Emmanuelle

In October we said goodbye to College tortoise Emmanuelle, a beloved member of the Regent’s community since her arrival over 45 years ago. After struggling with multiple conditions relating to her old age, she died peacefully just before the University term began. When this sad news was announced, many current and former students and staff shared fond and amusing memories.

Emmanuelle was a stalwart of my time at Regent’s and I recall her winning the intercollegiate races and being a source of much joy to the student body. During the croquet season, Emmanuelle’s many years of experience allowed her to position herself out of range of the balls flying across the lawn (most of the time...). She was sometimes mistakenly referred to as a ‘turtle’ by visiting students from abroad, although she never once seemed to take offence at this, which I always thought was most gracious on her part.

As our Chaplain, Revd Beth Allison-Glenny, expressed when the College gathered to celebrate Emmanuelle, she both represented and cultivated community at Regent’s: ‘It is rather an unusual thing to do, to bury a tortoise. But it is also a very special thing: to take the time to honour a creature’s life. It is to cherish her, and it is also a way of celebrating this college; that we are a community of people who have allowed ourselves to be formed around the small things: the shared care of an animal, the small delights of where she roamed, what she was eating, when she was hibernating, and how she has linked our present experience of college with so many students of the past. So, it is a time for saying goodbye, and also, an occasion for celebrating who she was and who we are. A time for re-telling a story that has shaped us as a community for over 50 years. A story of a rather large, and surprisingly fast tortoise, who ate dandelions and was deeply loved.’

Emmanuelle was a full member of the JCR, and the coveted position of ‘Tortoise Keeper’ has been conferred on generations of students through annual elections. We would like to thank all the staff, students, and tortoise keepers who have contributed to Emmanuelle’s care and doted on her over the years, and especially those former students who originally purchased her from the pet shop in the Covered Market more than four decades ago.

I served as ‘tortoise monarch’ for a year or so around 2000. It was one of the most stressful years of my life. Is she ready to go in the box to hibernate? Has she eaten enough? Will she make it through the winter? What if she dies on my watch?! With characteristic aplomb and a disdainful sense of, ‘I’ve done this before’, she emerged in spring for strawberries, cherry tomatoes, and fingers! She remains the only tortoise to which I have ever given a bath! Now that her race is run, I’m just so pleased to have been one of the many who benefitted from her being around.