Island Hideaway 17 - Basil Rathbone's Tortoise​​

"Basil Rathbone named his tortoise after my grandmother", Mo said to me once.​​​

​​​"Did he?" I said.​​​

​​​"I have my grandmother's word for it." She paused, waiting for me to speak. "Muriel," she said eventually, "If you're interested."​​​

​​​"Who, your grandmother or the tortoise?"​​​

​​​She pulled a face, a po-face. A Mo-face.​​​

​​​I liked the old Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films. The story would end, the big secret revealed, the criminal caught, jewel or papers returned, another incompetent Scotland Yard Inspector heralded in the press, but instead of cutting to the credits it would close-up on Rathbone, who would pronounce an important-sounding metaphor, "There are dark clouds over us Watson and I fear that before long we will have worse than Moriaty to contend with," then he would puff his pipe ponderously for a long while, before the credits finally dared to show themselves. ​​​

In the 90s, before every frame of film in the universe was ever-available just by shouting at your TV, old films were only available late at night, after pub kick-out time, and you'd walk home from the pub with your housemates, and in the house you'd divide, some of you going to the kitchen to begin the industrial tea and toast manufacture that was always required post pub, but two of you would stay in the lounge, one of you to operate the TV, the other to plough through that week's Guardian Guide, looking for a terrible old film for you all to slump in front of with your tea and toast, your tales, your woes, your hopes, more toast, obviously, more tea, then you need a wee and when you come down from the toilet there is Basil Rathbone, sucking on his pipe and pondering the nature of the universe. ​​​

​​​And Mo, who is there on the sofa with you because you can't be trusted alone with the remote, says. "Basil Rathbone named his tortoise after my grandmother."​​​

​​​And in all the time I knew her that was the only thing Mo ever said about her grandmother. ​​​​​