A lot has changed in the past 22 years. In 2001, Tony Blair was just beginning his second term as Prime Minister and a kid called Daniel Radcliffe was about to make his movie debut.
Back then, a 16-year-old girl called Nicol Arathoon got a goldfish from her local garden centre. Like many youngsters, she proudly brought it home in a plastic bag.
Today, Nicol is a 38-year-old mum of two - and goldfish Sparky is still very much a part of the family. Despite a recent health scare, ever-gold Sparky, who is the same age as Nicol's son, is still swimming.
Nicol, from Ellesmere Port, told the Liverpool ECHO: Nicol said: "He's part of the furniture. I'd be lost without him. I was not giving up on him. Everyone was saying flush him down the toilet, put him out of his misery, but I wasn't having it."
Nicol bought Sparky along with another goldfish - which died the very next day.
She said: "We bought two fish and then he killed the other one. The other one was dead the next day. We've added fish to his tank later on and they've all died, so we think he's been killing them. We call him Sparky the Sharky."
Nicol thought her pet's time was up eight weeks ago when she found him curled up at the bottom of his tank. But he perked up after Nicol spent £60 on swim bladder treatments and switched his food from 99p pellets to premium flakes.
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She said: "I was giving him dried garden peas because I heard it was good for them, I bought proper expensive food for him. When he was curled up in a ball he couldn't get up to get his food, so I was using a straw to push the peas into his mouth, and I was nursing him basically. In the end, before I went on holiday I said to my partner if he's still sick when we come back, I'm taking him to a fish vet.
"We put the last bit (of medicine) in the tank just before we went away, and when we came back a week later at half four in the morning we were like - oh my God, he's swimming! We didn't even think he was going to be alive, but somehow he survived it. It's a miracle. I'm really in shock. I'm amazed. I've been crying over him and everything."
This is not the first time Sparky has had a lucky escape, as he was found floating upside down in his tank six years ago after a run-in with a sausage roll. But he made a miraculous recovery - which inspired Nicol and her partner Paul to have the plucky fish's name tattooed on their arms.
Nicol said: "My niece threw a sausage roll in the tank. We had a really bad scare, I was crying my eyes out because he looked like he was dead and he was belly-up at the top of the tank. We just changed his water, and he came back to life.
"He jumped out once; we were changing his water and he leapt out of the jug. He landed on the kitchen floor. That was when we first got him and he was quite young then, but God knows how old he was when we bought him.
"I've always said when he does pass I want him taken to a vet to see how old he really is, because there's every chance he's older. He's definitely the oldest fish from around here."
