Having just bought a new lawnmower I've become very keen on tidying up the garden.

The neatly-cut lawn hasn't made me go mad with the strimmer though, because I've seen the results of strimmer injuries.

Hedgehogs nest underneath hedges and in overgrown parts of the garden - just the place where a strimmer is most handy. If you don't check carefully before you start work you won't know the little creature is there until you have injured it.

Strimmer injuries are dreadful. Please look before you strim. Nobody wants to hurt a hedgehog.

A H Coles,

British Hedgehog Preservation Society,

Knowbury House,

Shropshire.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.