British colonel out­waits dead wife’s dying pets

The lizard whose name is Timmy leads a lux­u­ri­ous but love­less life. Things were dif­fer­ent for him just after the war when the wife of a British offi­cer, Mrs. Mar­ion Kel­lett, took Timmy and six other lizards from Egypt to their new home in Natal, South Africa. Pay­ing $800 duty on them, Mrs.s Kel­lett fed her pets fresh flow­ers and green peas, adorned them with col­lars and bells, and called each by name. Then in 1951 they became lizards of wealth when Mrs. Kel­lett died and left them $3,920, with the pro­viso that when­ever one might die $560 should go to her hus­band, Colonel Feath­er­stone Thomas Kel­lett. The seven lizards and their income from the $3,920 were entrusted to the S.P.C.A. in nearby Dur­ban. But though he main­tained the lizards’ dainty diet, their keeper, Major John East­er­brook, could not help look­ing on them askance as “rep­tiles — and rep­tiles are ver­min.” The biggest, Johnny, pined away and died, fol­lowed by Blacky, Lucy and The Boy. Now Colonel Kel­lett, who so far col­lected $2,240 of his legacy, coldly con­tem­plates the three sur­vivors, Mary, Baby, and Timmy, refuses to visit them and looks for­ward to the end “of those damn lizards.”

“I’m sick to death of those bloody lizards,” the colonel says as he poses for pho­tos with his young sec­ond wife.

The lizard’s keeper, Major East­er­brook, holds sur­vivors Mary, Baby, Timmy. He tries to call the lizards by name but often gets them mixed up.

–Life Mag­a­zine, 1953

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