Opinion: Come out of the shed, it is time for surgery.

It was a pathetic, wretched sight. He was a shambling, slobbering wreck, only a pale shadow of the fine upstanding man he used to be. We'd been searching for him for a while, but he was ratted out by his neighbours and we eventually found him cowering in a garden shed, hiding behind the lobelias.

'We were worried about you,' I said. 'We looked everywhere.'

'No,' he pleaded. 'Leave me alone; I can't go out there, I can't take it anymore. You can't make me.'

It's tough to watch a grown man crying and I recalled the words of Oscar Wilde: 'One would have to have a heart of stone to read of the death of Little Nell without laughing.'

'Come on out,' I …