The next act was a husband and wife and their performing doves. The beautiful white birds hopped obligingly from a series of perches onto various props including a miniature trapeze, a small seesaw and a brightly coloured roundabout. They flew on command to pluck coloured silk handkerchiefs from the hand of the husband, circle the stage and then land on the hand of the wife. Well – most of them did. There was one bird who looked a bit truculent from the start. He preferred preening his feathers to paying attention to the commands being given by his master and he performed each trick rather grudgingly. Imelda thought he seemed a bit bored. She was right. All at once, he decided to go solo. He flew high over the heads of the audience and landed on top of one of the palm trees where he sat pecking at the gilded leaves. The act was brought to a hasty conclusion and the remaining doves were returned to their cage. But the audience was clearly far more interested in how the renegade was going to be retrieved. The husband approached the base of the palm tree, accompanied by an agitated Marty, who was not at all happy that his expensive interior design feature was being used as a perch by one of the performers. The bird was eventually persuaded to fly down, but not before relieving himself from his lofty perch, depositing generous white splashes on the suits of both men standing beneath him. The audience was highly entertained and even Shunty-Mae was unable to supress a sanctimonious grin.

Ruby reappeared on stage to calm the commotion by announcing the next act. Sara-Jade Virtue was a fine-looking woman comfortably past her fortieth birthday, with a body as lithe as a teenager’s. She wore black tights and a leotard sprinkled with sequins, and was swathed in a series of sheer, sparkling lengths of cloth. As she sashayed around the stage accompanied by some Egyptian music, she discarded each veil with a seductive swirl.

‘A woman of her age should know better than to flaunt her body for all and sundry to gawp at,’ hissed Shunty-Mae to Imelda. ‘She’s practically naked. This so-called holiday park is little better than Sodom and Gomorrah!’