The Sunday night meeting was meant to be for strangers. It was also called ‘The Public Address’. Strangers were people who hadn’t found the Truth yet, and who might realise the error of their ways if they came to this meeting. We very rarely had strangers, and I wasn’t surprised because I don’t think the meeting would have felt all that friendly if you were an outsider. We all dressed in our Sunday best, just for starters, and that meant anyone who came to the door of the hall in casual clothes would have felt right out of it. Girls in our church were never allowed to wear trousers to meetings, so that would have made a lot of girls feel pretty awkward if they were strangers. And baptised women had to have their heads covered, so seeing a pile of women in dresses and hats would have felt a bit out of the ordinary to most people. And on top of that, Anne always said we probably looked pretty ugly. Women weren’t meant to wear makeup or miniskirts or heels or sheer stockings or much jewellery, and boys had to wear white shirts and suits and ties, even when it was very hot.

So Anne was probably right and even if I’d been a stranger who wanted to learn the Truth, I think I’d have gone somewhere that was a bit cooler. And I meant that literally in the summer, because men were not allowed to remove their jackets until it was over one hundred degrees, and the Presiding Member on the stage invited them to remove their coats. We had a few big fans hanging on the side of the wall in the temple, but every summer at least a few old men and a couple of younger ones passed out with the heat. Girls weren’t allowed to go barelegged or wear sleeveless dresses, but at least we could wear short sleeves and that was a blessing.

I hated, hated, hated wearing stockings, and made Mum cross by asking where it said in the Bible we had to do it. I also pointed out that Mr Driver told me that women couldn’t find or afford stockings during the war and had to go barelegged with a line drawn up the back of their leg to pretend they had a stocking seam on, and as I said to Mum, surely God didn’t stop loving them then because it wasn’t their fault about the nylon situation.

Mum said God wanted us to always do the best we could in the situation we found ourselves in and that meant dressing up for church. Mum didn’t mind dressing up. Aunty Maisie regularly said she ‘went to the edge of what was decent’, but she got lots of admiring looks from people and she looked very fetching in hats, which not that many people can do.

Ruthy looked sweet in hats and liked wearing them, but I seemed to have a small head and they always sat too low over my eyes and bugged me. I tilted them up to get them out of the way, but Mum always tugged them down again and said you should always wear a hat level with your eyes unless it was a pillbox or a beret, neither of which she would buy me. I always seemed to get my straw hats dirty or a bit torn or straggly, which also drove her nuts. She kept hers in lovely hatboxes she covered in flowery wallpaper in the top of her cupboard. Ruthy also put hers away on the top shelf of our wardrobe, but mine always seemed to find their way to the floor of the wardrobe under jumpers and shoes.