For this week’s Nostalgia in the Bracknell News, we are going back to November 1, 1996, when a unique dating service started to be the talk of the town.

Instead of focusing on people getting hitched, Martin Nicholas decided to set up his own business so that his friends’ spiders were mating in order to make spider babies.

Yes, you read that correctly.

In the BBC news clip which is from 26 years ago, the piece shows viewers around Martin’s flat where he had numerous eight-legged creatures in terrariums from all over the world.

Tarantulas were the main species he collected at his Berkshire home and after showing off his pets to his mates, he realized that money could be made in this niche industry.

After his business began to boom, he then took his services to a pet shop in Reading so that they could sell some of Martin’s baby spiders.

With the mating process, he chose two tarantulas (who were called Terry and Tallulah) for the feature, and after he put on some background music to help the creatures ‘get in the mood’, he revealed how spiders start the mating process.

Martin described that the female spider would ‘bang their front legs and release a scent' for the men to see and smell.

Once completed, the female spider will be pregnant within five minutes.

However, the news item also discovered that the female creatures could sometimes eat their male counterparts to death once becoming pregnant.

Hence why Terry the tarantula did not acknowledge Tallulah’s advances and remained cooped up in a small jar inside his cage for well over an hour.

He did not want to be eaten.

Martin said: “Hopefully there’ll be some sexual chemistry.

“I find them fascinating, and you can never get bored with them.

“There are over 700 species of tarantula and over 40,000 in terms of other spiders.

“The fun is just endless.”

Martin began collecting spiders aged seven and by May 1996, he had over 2,000 in his Bracknell flat.

Another one of his creatures included Rosie the Mexican tarantula.

She had been mated with four different spiders and produced over 600 babies.

She was only used for special occasions after she began a habit of eating her sexual partners after doing the deed.