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The Guardian, London, UK, Saturday 20 March: My newt and I
"I didn't see a newt in the wild until the summer of 1958. I had bunked off school and gone to the rookery at Streatham Common, hoping to catch some tadpoles, when I noticed a male smooth newt was trapped in a small channel leading out of the main pond. It kept swimming very fast through my fingers but I eventually got it into my jam jar and bore it home in triumph.
My dad dug out the small tank in which our baby red-eared terrapin had lived a short, miserable existence (the pet shop didn't tell us it liked sunbathing at 80 degrees or that a diet of dried ant eggs wasn't very nutritious), and, after I'd scrubbed the tank, my newt plunged into his new domain and slowly pranced backwards and forwards across the bottom. Mesmerised, I sat and stared at the exquisite detail of the colours and patterns in its tail, crest and the bright–orange spotted belly as it swam up to take another gulp of air."
Continued: Guardian guide to pets | Ken Livingstone | Life and style | guardian.co.uk
"I didn't see a newt in the wild until the summer of 1958. I had bunked off school and gone to the rookery at Streatham Common, hoping to catch some tadpoles, when I noticed a male smooth newt was trapped in a small channel leading out of the main pond. It kept swimming very fast through my fingers but I eventually got it into my jam jar and bore it home in triumph.
My dad dug out the small tank in which our baby red-eared terrapin had lived a short, miserable existence (the pet shop didn't tell us it liked sunbathing at 80 degrees or that a diet of dried ant eggs wasn't very nutritious), and, after I'd scrubbed the tank, my newt plunged into his new domain and slowly pranced backwards and forwards across the bottom. Mesmerised, I sat and stared at the exquisite detail of the colours and patterns in its tail, crest and the bright–orange spotted belly as it swam up to take another gulp of air."
Continued: Guardian guide to pets | Ken Livingstone | Life and style | guardian.co.uk