IT'S nice to see your most carefully crafted pieces of work being put to good use. At least that was the consolation I took from finding a Pryce's People feature face up on the bottom of a hedgehogs' cage with a couple of babies squirting all over it.

Sort of "today's front page, tomorrow's fish and chip paper", but with an animal theme.

Fiona Fearnley, who runs the Hedgehog Halfway House from what I thought was the unlikely setting of a townhouse garden in the middle of Worcester, was slightly embarrassed.

But she needn't have been. Over the years I've used everything from Berrow's Journal to the Daily Star to mop up the excitement of puppies in the kitchen. The Financial Times is the best, incidentally. Its pink pages are the most absorbent.

During the summer months, Fiona is going to need a regular supply of Worcester News, because this is the time for baby hedgehogs and her rescue service is at full stretch, all whistles blowing and bells clanging.

"Do you know, the other day I drove all the way over to Kington in Herefordshire to pick up an injured baby hedgehog," she said.

"The round trip was well over three hours. I must be mad."

She's certainly not that, but considering Fiona funds the entire venture herself, it takes some doing.

Down at the bottom of her immaculate garden in Chestnut Walk, Worcester, where she lives with husband Paul - Fearnley? Cricket? Got the connection? - is her hedgehog recuperation centre.

There you will find four clean as a whistle cages, all containing hedgehogs in various stages of recovery. Each cage is lined with newspaper and has a heated mat and fleece blanket. While pinned outside is a comprehensive sheet detailing the dietary needs of the occupant, its feeding times and health condition.

"Not long ago, I had 15 hedgehogs in at one time," said Fiona.

"They all had different feeds and had to be fed at different times. It was seriously hectic. Virtually a full-time job."

She works part-time for a veterinary practice in Malvern and that's how all this really started.

"I'd had a few jobs, but I'd always wanted to work with animals," she explained. "So I decided to do something about it before it was too late." She's 37 , by the way.

"I enrolled on a two-year HNC course at Pershore College in animal welfare and management. Then I went on a work placement to a vets in Malvern and while I was there, I became aware of the number of injured or abandoned hedgehogs that came in.

"I contacted the British Hedgehog Preservation Society and they told me they didn't have a rescue centre in Worcestershire. So I decided to set one up at home."

In case you doubt the need, Fiona can point to the fact that in the last 12 months, she has seen more than 50 hedgehogs pass through her care. That's about one a week.

She's had everything from a 36-hour old hoglet (the name for a baby) to grown adults who have fallen foul of one of any number of hazards.

They are usually referred to her by vets, the emergency services or through the BHPS, although individuals sometimes turn up on her doorstep with them, too.

"The thing people need to remember if they see a young hedgehog alone in the wild, unless it has obviously been injured, is that it may not necessarily have been abandoned by its mother," Fiona pointed out. "If they handle it, they could pass on a human scent that will lead to the mother rejecting it when she returns.

"The best way is to observe the hedgehog over a period of a few hours and only act then if it appears to be in trouble.

"This time of the year is when the young are growing and leaving the nest, but don't assume every young hedgehog you see needs rescuing."

Badgers are their only serious predator - the rise in the badger population corresponding with a fall in the number of hedgehogs - but the creatures are also susceptible to garden pesticides and poisons, drowning in garden ponds, becoming caught up in garden netting, traffic and human cruelty.

One female hedgehog used as a football by a group of youths, was so traumatised that when she unexpectedly gave birth while at the Halfway House, she bit the heads off all four of her babies.

Her tormentors were later successfully prosecuted.

To fund her service, Fiona gives talks, designs cards and wallpaper, and customises pencils and magnets, which she sells at craft fayres and other events.

"I've never worked out how much this all costs," she admitted. "But it's worth it.

"After all, some people have got fairies at the bottom of their garden. But I've got hedgehogs."

Nice to know they have something to read while they are recuperating.