But what could a hedgehog possibly get hysterical about? I can hear you asking yourself…but you haven’t met Harold – if you had, you’d get it…really, I promise you would. In fact, it was during one of Harold’s hysterical outbursts that we had to promise him his own name label to stop him from hyperventilating…believe me, no one wants a hyperventilating hedgehog!
The rolling green hills of the North Downs in Kent is the home of Harold’s hedgehog family. Harold is the youngest born to Hetty and Harvey hedgehog. He has an older brother, Henry and a sister, Harriett, both of whom are quite sensible and not at all prone to the same hysterical outbursts as their younger brother (much to the relief of their long-suffering parents).
As well as the bouts of terrible hysteria Harold inflicts regularly on his family and friends, there is also his complete ability to lose anything unless it is firmly attached to him in some way. This has led to his mother tying belongings to his spikes with threads of cotton in various colours which often get stuck on various plants and bushes as he scrambles past. It also gives a rather ethnic appearance which has become the cause of his friends nicknaming him Hippy Harold. This in itself often brings on an outburst of hysteria – Harold is not keen on his nickname.
And so it is that on this particular day, Harold is scurrying home from his violin lesson when he quite literally bumps into his friend Ferdie the fieldmouse, who is rushing sweet shop bound in the direction of the village.
“Ouch” squeaks Ferdie as he tries to remove a hedgehog spike from his front right leg. “Do watch where you are going Harold, it hurts running into you!”
Harold’s eyes start to fill with tears, he feels the familiar waves of panic and upset sweeping over him and he starts to sob, softly at first then rising to a high-pitched wail that turns into quite hysterical sobbing.
Ferdie rolls his eyes; he is quite used to Harold’s extreme over reactions having put up with them ever since they attended Miss Violet the vole’s nursery school several years ago.
“There now Harold” he says more gently, “take a deep breath and dry your eyes on this” – he produces a blue spotted handkerchief from his satchel.
Harold sniffs noisily, still whimpering as he takes the offered hankie from his friend.
“What’s this Ferdie?” asks Harold between sniffs, looking at a small colourful label, neatly stuck onto the corner of Ferdie’s hankie.
“Oh, that’s got my name and picture on it so it doesn’t get lost” replies Ferdie kindly, thankful to be forgiven even though he was the injured party.
“You should get your mum to get you some then she can stop tying your stuff to your spikes with all that silly coloured thread” he adds helpfully.
“Oh Ferdie, what a marvellous idea! Will you come home with me to show her?”
Ferdie looks ruefully in the direction of the Village and the sweet shop, but decides he would rather forgo his bar of chocolate than face another meltdown from Harold, so, slightly downcast, he agrees.
Thanks to Ferdie’s kindness, Hetty contacted us at Tiger Tags the following day to order name labels for all her hedgehog children. Back then, we didn’t have a hedgehog design available but hearing Harold’s growing wails in the background, our lovely team hastily agreed to add the hedgehog to the range immediately!
So, Harold is no longer “Hippy” and is doing very well with keeping his freshly name labelled belongings safe. He is still prone to hysterical outbursts, but Hetty and Harvey remain sure that he will grow out of them…they hope. Fingers crossed!
