I remember, quite vividly, carrying home a little gerbil from the pet shop in New Eltham (now long gone) in a rather flimsy little cardboard box. As a voracious reader of Dick King-Smith’s books, I decided to name him after the eponymous parrot in Harry’s Mad, whose full name was Madison. I have grown up convinced that ‘Madison J. Holdsworth’ was a former US president, a notion that Wikipedia has just disabused me of. I think Madison the parrot was named after the 4th president, James Madison, and the family in the book are the Holdsworths, and so I arrived at ‘Madison J. Holdworth’. As far as I can remember, the ‘J.’ never stood for anything, I just thought it sounded American and cool. I don’t know when I started believing that the whole name was presidential; memory is such a strange thing.
Madison was a lovely little gerbil, although he never properly got used to being handled. He did everything you expect of a small rodent: running in his wheel; scurrying through, then gnawing, toilet roll tubes; looking cute when you give him a gerbil treat to chew on. I think of him with affection, despite his occasionally fractious behaviour, but remain resolutely a cat person. The only other time I’ve lived with a rodent was many years later, with a darling hamster called Katie…
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