Years ago, my first wife and I lived within a couple of miles of the Epsom complex of mental illness and mental handicap hospitals, which back then had a total patient population of around 10,000. There had been the very occasional instance of a mental illness patient leaving his hospital and committing an offence of some sort, nothing very serious - no murders or anything like that - but enough to keep folk on the qui vive.
One summer’s evening we were about to doze off - we used the bedroom at the back of the house - when we heard this weird snuffling noise in the garden, so brave Rolls went down to sort out whatever was involved. Walked out, waving a torch around. Couldn’t see anyone, then realised the snuffling was almost at my feet. Redirected the torch to see that I had almost trodden on a small group of hedgehogs. One scuttled off, one rolled into a ball, one brazened it out
Mike