He was known as Dickfixer Lawkins but, needless to say, that wasn’t his real surname. His Christian name was passed down from his father (and from many generations before him) who followed an occupation which, until recent years, had fallen into disuse, subsequent to its earlier malpractice.

Some thought the job must have been something to do with baiting our loyal servants the police, whose powers, because of their monopoly in legally stopping people in the street for no reason at all, once needed curtailing by the Dickfixers. Others, in their wisdom, often though he derived from an arcane stock of statue trimmers, since market squares in the Vind Valley catchment areas advertised their conveniences with prominent mock-ups of the male form.

If the truth were known, the Dickfixers WERE a secret society, but one of sharp medical practicioners learned in the Ancient lore of venereal disorders affecting those of an indiscriminate cast.

Our man Lawkins, at the end of his line of such fiddlers with the enthighed sanctities, was only too pleased to come out into the open at the very same time when the range of such nagging recoils again invaded, with renewed force, prized areas of carnal existence. He knew he would have to do a good job for, being of a fastidious nature himself, he had no son to carry it on. Either rid the Vind Valley in one fell swoop or just let the police have their own way and keep everyone indoors. He has been seen often traipsing the high-sided alleys, where even the kerbside gutters were overflowing with a substance he suspected to be more than just melting snow… You couldn’t miss his characterful presence.

Arriving now at the sadness of the tale, Dickfixer Lawkins was, however, clean mad, but equally sane enough to conceal his background for shame of such madness, with the alias Lawkins. The statues outside the public letting-houses bore the brunt of his single-minded surgery (some said it was needful for him to practice first and the stone appendages were as good as any). But, it did tend to make him a trifle heavy-handed when it came to the real men upon whom he pounced within the dripping walls that the statues seemed to guard.

The thaw had set in. The spring was just round the corner. And it dawned on Dickfixer Lawkins that his job must be at an end. The lambing session was an area of time when he could hibernate, perhaps forever, sheep shears on the pillow beside him. In his fruitful madness, he began to consider other worthy causes (like doctoring the town’s drainage systems) – and, as he aimed against the brown-mottled enamel wall with his own stiff-brushed luggage, he placed the blades of his scissors at the optimum angle and snipped proudly with the merest crunching sound just once, like all good surgeons worth their salt (without even first testing the lie of the land with the more precise tweezers).