When Tina returned to the cottage to prepare for the party Peter found her sullen and uncommunicative. She changed into the velvet dress, but seemed to have little interest in her appearance. She could not upset Peter’s good humour and he opened a bottle of wine and gave her a glass, and they waited silently for Rob.

Rob was late, wet and irritable. As he changed he gave his excuses and drank Peter’s wine.

“I saw a funny gull on the sea. It was too far away to identify properly, but there was something odd about it. Something about the head shape. I set up the ‘scope and waited for ages, hoping that it would fly, but the sea was dead calm and it didn’t move. The light got worse and worse and it started to drizzle, so I had to come away in the end.”

“What do you think it might have been?” Peter asked. Tina was not listening.

Rob was oddly vague about the bird and refused to put a name to it. He changed the subject and suggested that they had time for a quick drink in the Anchor before the start of the film.

The hall was next to the church on a small incline to the south of the village. It was a square, stone building surrounded by trees. When Bernard Cranshaw arrived he noted with irritation that a number of large, expensive cars were already parked outside. He was too late, and someone else would have taken charge. His presence would not even be noticed. Aggressively he pushed his way inside.

The hall filled quickly. Ella watched with excitement, recognizing not only friends and neighbours from the village, but a carload from one of the inland market towns and a family of wealthy landowners who lived in the biggest house in the district. She laid her coat across the seats next to hers to save them for Sally, Molly and George. When they arrived she waved and beckoned to them. Her excitement and enjoyment were infectious, and Sally felt like a child on Christmas Eve as the lights dimmed ready for the film to begin.

When Peter Littleton, Rob Earl and Tina arrived, breathless after running from the Anchor, the hall was full and the film was about to start. They perched on trestle tables at the back. There the wild boys and girls of the village already sat, defiantly wearing their leather jackets, chewing gum and whispering to each other obscurely obscene jokes.

The film was delicate and haunting, capturing the sense of space on the marsh and its strange, clear beauty. There were close-up shots of waders and wildfowl. It provided an intimate picture of the birds’ lives. Villagers who had come to the film just because it provided them with the chance of a night out were fascinated by the insight into the wild creatures’ behaviour, by the detailed view of a bird they thought they knew well, but which they had only seen at a distance.