When I was a child, I witnessed my parent’s gardener killing a snake. It was a beautiful, large grass snake. He brought a spade down sharply behind its head as it rippled across the lawn. At the age of five I knew this was wrong. Instead of making me afraid of snakes, this has given me a lifelong affinity for them.
The grass snake, Natrix helvetica, is harmless, but I like to think that the gardener didn’t know this. In Northumberland they are extremely rare, so it’s unlikely that I will ever find one here. On the moors above this valley, though, I might spot a shy adder – Vipera berus, the UK’s only venomous snake – as it slithers away to safety.
