Has Carole the tarantula cured my arachnophobia?

I’ve been an arachnophobe my whole life. I can’t remember a time when videos of spiders, or even photos or drawings, didn’t give me palpitations. As a kid Charlotte’s Web read as sinister propaganda. Even as an adult, just hearing the word ‘tarantula’ would make me feel like one was crawling on me (kind friends and colleagues took to calling it ‘the t-word’). I wish I could blame someone for these fears, but no one else in my immediate family screamed uncontrollably when a house spider scuttled across the floor.

A fear of spiders is the third most common phobia in the UK, so I know I haven’t been alone. But I’d grown increasingly frustrated by my arachnophobia over the years. I like to think of myself as a rational person, but that belief is hard to sustain when I’m shrieking in front of my colleagues because I saw an image of a spider on Twitter. I was also tired of being so afraid of something so benign.

Last month, after a humiliating encounter with a house spider in my wardrobe, I decided I’d had enough. I signed up to London Zoo’s ‘Friendly Spider Programme’, a half-day course that claims to ‘ease or eliminate the condition of arachnophobia’. I managed perhaps two hours’ sleep the night before.

The lead instructor Dave reassured me that the success rate of the programme is more than 90 per cent. Success is measured by each participant catching a British house spider in a plastic cup, sliding a piece of paper under the not-so-little guy and picking it up as if to release it. I told him I couldn’t imagine doing much more than screaming and running out of the room.