Ornamental lion head on upper chest

The lion came down from the warehouse on Tib Street last night, wrapped in sacking like a drowned man, and I was the one who had to hold his head steady while the carters swore at the rope. You will laugh, but I think I know him now. Mr Okafor says a moulder in Sheffield cast him before the old mill shut, and he has been sulking in the cellar ever since. His mane is cut in chevrons, each point filed so sharp it nicked my thumb, and between the chevrons sit little diamonds, hundreds of them, each one pricked in by hand so the brass goes grey instead of gold.

We hung him over the chandler's door at half past nine, when the gas lamps along Castle Street were just starting to hum. From the pavement he looked fierce, all teeth and bristle, but from the upstairs window he looked tired, the way a man does after a long shift. Mr Okafor says the stippling on his muzzle is where the moulder's thumb pressed the clay again and again, trying to get the face right, and that the lion is never quite the same twice depending on who stands below him.

At eleven the street emptied and the lamplighter came round with his pole, lighting each mantle in turn. When he reached our lion, he stopped, looked up at the grey dots glowing faintly in the light, and touched the brim of his cap. I have decided the lion is not for sale, whatever Mr Okafor says. Come and see him before the winter fog gets into his mane.

Your loving sister, Flo