Originally, Pike Island was attached to a large area of intensive farming land, that we called Dead Acres. It was a thin tongue of land sticking into the river. then on one wet stormy winter the river rose and swept around the base of the tongue of land and formed a wide channel, which created an Island.
Sniggy the hedgehog is probably best described as a media person, who takes his calling very seriously ie. Gathering and disseminating the news among and to his fellow animals. His unique position as neither prey or predator is fundamental to his work, which often requires him to embed himself in the action, in order to get to the truth of events. With that in mind the story opens with Sniggy surviving a near death experience in an allotment compost heap. He has wandered onto the allotment, cultivated by the human Snuffy, the previous summer, and then decided to stay and hibernate until the next spring, in order to study the human Snuffy and his relationship with his two pet animals Garth a huge Main Coon cat and Nipper a small Yorkshire terrier. He then makes his way back to his birthplace on Pike Island. He is woken from his hibernation by the screaming and posturing of the psychopathic polecat Zorcan, a pet of the dead acres farmer. Zorcan is intent on wiping out all the islands residents. Sniggy agrees to help the animals to get rid of Zorcan and thus embarks upon an adventure.