Dawn helps light the way to a bright new beginning

IT will only underline what an old-fashioned and un-reconstructed man I am when I say that I was really surprised when the chimney sweep arrived.

For the sweep was a woman called Dawn.

She was bright and cheerful and keen and drove a huge estate car full of chimney sweep things.

She didn't look at all like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, for which I was grateful, but then nor did she look like the sweep I had imagined — which is male, chubby with a top hat and lots of brushes slung over his shoulder.

I should say that, in the absence of a giant redwood tree, I am the oldest living thing in the Echo newsroom and therefore I am allowed, even expected, to have such antiquated prejudices.

It is no real excuse but there it is.

Dawn was everything you could want of a sweep and a very nice person too.

The first consideration of course was the fact that she was a first-rate sweep. I have had some chimneys swept in my time but this was the quickest, neatest and most efficient piece of work I have ever seen.

To be honest it is difficult to gauge the precise efficiency without clambering up the chimney, which I was never going to do, but I lit a fire shortly after she left and it took off, well, like a house on fire.

That was worth the money in itself but even better was the easy-going charm of the sweep who, it appears, is being almost swept of her feet by the number of people who want their chimneys nice and clean for winter-time fires to gather around.

Which is why she was out on a Sunday afternoon, trying to keep pace with demand.

I had thought that central heating and solar panels had all but wiped out the open fire with real, real flames and smoke and sulphur and CO2 and MI5, but it appears that they are still alive and well and flourishing on smokeless fuel.

Which is good news for Dawn, but not the only reason for the bright smile that lit up her sooty face. She is just a natural.

I have to say that sweeps I have known, and I haven't known that many to be honest, have always been rather taciturn, introverted characters who, used to toiling alone, prefer to get on with the mysteries of their job, without company or cheerful banter about the weather, Exeter FC or how you always wanted to be a sweep yourself but didn't like chimneys or getting your hands dirty.

Dawn was happy to chat as she busied along, accepted a cup of coffee and offered helpful tips on open-fire fuels. She even handed over the soot she had recovered from the chimney, assuring me that it was a sovereign soil-enhancer for the garden.

She waved farewell and I set the fire in the time-honoured way that befits the pack's leading hunter and gatherer. Although I was never a Boy Scout I have always prided myself as something of a dab hand at setting fire. With a draught to die for the blaze was soon bright and fiery and the four of us gathered around the dog — who had bagged the best spot in front of the hearth — to warm ourselves, not just from the glow of the coals but with the cosiness of being all together when the ice is forming frozen patterns on the glass outside.

Huddled and cuddled together, dodging the sparks from the wood and trying to stop the now snoring dog from catching fire, it proved the best present we could have had — you could almost say the happy dawn of a bright new year.