Man who adopted fish he found in his garden shares sad update

For the past few days, the good people of these United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland have been heavily invested in one man's attempts to bring some stricken creature back from the brink.

This true champion of the people is Ben Beska, who on, 1 June, announced on social media that he'd found a fish in his garden - an extremely uncommon occurance for the average Brit.

While it was found on the grass, it was still alive, and there was some speculation as to how it had got there, but one common and popular theory was that the goldfish had been gobbled up by a bird, but fallen out of its mouth during flight.

Goldfish are notoriously water-based animals and would have a hard time getting into your garden under their own steam.

Over the next few days, the internet was entranced by Ben's efforts to care for the goldfish, who he called Alice, and a few folks who seemingly called him out for not having an emergency aquarium prepped and ready to go for just such an occasion.

Alice was moved to a freezer drawer full of water before getting a tank of her own, and a boyfriend in the form of a fish called Barney.

Sadly, earlier today (8 June) Ben delivered the tragic news that Alice had died, prompting a huge outpouring of grief and sorrow across the land.

Taking to X (formerly Twitter), he wrote: "Unfortunately I have some very sad news to share.

"Alice has passed from her injuries and is now eternally swimming in the Big Fish Tank In The Sky. RIP"

Alice soon became the subject of a plethora of memes as she was dubbed 'the people's fish', there were jokes about the line of people wanting to see her and someone even stuck her in one of those pictures with Paddington.

Yes, for some reason, Paddington Bear has become a sort of Charon the Boatman for the beloved dead, and of course a fish as beloved as Alice deserves no less than the full marmalade sandwich treatment.

One can only hope the nation recovers from this harrowing loss.

All joking aside, Ben admitted that he was actually quite sad about this, though to be fair, he did try his best to care for Alice when she was suddenly dropped into his life.

Let's hope Barney doesn't get too lonely - though, Ben also issued a follow-up tweet to let the world know Barney's 'fine' and 'just hanging out'.