A pensioner has been left bereft after her pet tortoise, which she has had for 50 years, "vanished" from her back garden. Marion Lewis, 84, has been "knocked for six" by the sudden disappearance of the 80-year-old tortoise, called 'Tortie', last Thursday, April 28.
The disappearance of the beloved pet has sparked a town-wide tortoise-hunt, with the "whole Llantrisant community" searching the area for Tortie. But after seven days there is still "no sign" of it anywhere, and the family are mystified as to its whereabouts.
Marion's daughter Cerys Llewellyn, 54, said the tortoise first came into their lives when her aunt found it after it "just appeared" in her back garden in Pontypridd. When no-one had claimed it after a few weeks, the animal was adopted by Cerys' family. You can read all our Llantrisant stories here.
It has remained in the family home in Llantrisant for five decades ever since, and Cerys estimates it is now about 80 years old because it was already an adult when they adopted it. Describing the close and endearing relationship Marion has with the tortoise, she said: "My mother cwtches him up to her chest like he's a baby.
"We've lived in the village 50-odd years, and everybody knows my parents have got a tortoise. If they see him wandering they normally bring him straight back, but this time nobody has brought him back."
Recalling the day Tortie went missing, Cerys said: "My father was out cutting the grass and he put the tortoise down the bottom part of the garden. Then when he finished cutting the grass and he went down, the tortoise had just disappeared. He'd obviously wandered off somewhere. He's done it before but he's always been brought back within a matter of hours. But this time he hasn't come back."
Cerys said the family have even checked under their shed and added that there is no hole in her parents' garden - but she thinks the tortoise might have escaped through the gate. "I finished work that evening and I went and had a good look up the street and through all the bushes, but there is just no sign of him anywhere - he's just vanished," she said.
She continued: "There's a lot of building work going on quite close to my parents, so I would perhaps see if one of the builders have picked him up and taken him. He could be in somebody's back garden and just nobody has spotted him yet."
From the very day he went missing, the Llantrisant community rallied together to find the missing pet, with residents coming from different streets to join in. "There is a group getting together now this weekend to go out looking in people's gardens. My mum is not physically well at the moment and gets quite confused and forgetful, so the community are really looking after my parents and helping to find him," she said, adding that local residents have been "absolutely superb" in their efforts.
Asked whether there was a possibility Tortie had been stolen, Cerys said: "They're quite valuable animals, so I'm thinking that somebody potentially could have picked it up, thinking it didn't belong to anybody, and has then just taken it.
Cerys expressed other concerns - namely that tortoises suffocate when they turn on their backs and can develop close relationships with their owners. "If somebody else has got it, it's going to be distressing for the tortoise, because he only knows my mum, dad, myself and my siblings," she explained.
Describing Tortie, Cerys said he is a bit bigger than a dinner plate and loves eating courgettes and dandelions. "My mum is really upset," she said. "She keeps saying, 'If somebody's got him, I hope they're looking after him'. She misses him terribly - she absolutely adores him. My father is upset as well. I just keep myself positive just to try and help them." To get stories from across Pontypridd and Llantrisant sent to your inbox every single, subscribe to our dedicated newsletter here.
