‘Aye, you’ll walk a long way before you’ll find me in one of they time-wasters. You’ll no be needing any of that stuff here, we make our own entertainment. We’ve a Post Office and a Jenny a’things shop, a paraffin cart and lots of delivery callers. Plenty going on on a farm tae keep you out o’ mischief!’

‘And in the summer the tallyman calls with his ice cream van,’ added Netta, hoping to impress.

‘Not any longer, he won’t, hen. He’ll be off to one of them camps for Eyeties and enemy aliens.’

‘Whit’s that stink?’ The two children pegged their fingers to their noses in disgust.

‘Just muck spreading… from the cows, you’ll soon get used to the pong. It clears yer chest.’

‘It smells like shite! Malky, we’re goin’ to have tae live in shite,’ whispered Wilma.

‘Any more o’that bad language, young lady, and I’ll wash yer mouth out with Oxydol!’

‘Ma maw washes ma hair with Persil tae bring out the colour, so she does. She says I’ll look like Jean Harlow if we keep it up. I didna want to be evaporated doon here.’ Wilma hugged her parcels close to her chest. Netta looked at Peg’s lips twitching into a smirk and burst out laughing herself.

‘Whit are yous twos grinning at?’ snapped Wilma, suddenly on the defensive.

‘You’ve been evacuated, not evaporated… you’re not a can of milk!’ laughed Netta.

‘I’m no dumb cluck, that’s whit I said. You must have tatties in yer ears.’ This girl was not easily put down.

‘Suit yersel, I know whit I heard,’ Netta mimicked.

Just you speak properly, Netta Nichol, I’m not having you picking up the patter from the likes of this girl. She’s as coarse as heather!’

It was not the best of starts. As they climbed the track up to the whitewashed farm the two strangers fell silent, watching the huge fat stock cattle eyeing their progress. They clung together at the sight of Angus in his huge boots, his corduroys held up with a black leather belt. He looked like a whiskery, sandy-haired giant to them. Malky hid himself under Wilma’s thin coat, cowering away from the sight of the bull calf being led out into the field.

‘This’ll be your job to milk him each morning,’ teased Angus. Malky buried his head in his sister’s thigh.

‘He’s just blethering, Malky, don’t you be scared. You’ll soon get the hang of it.’

Netta couldn’t look her father in the face. These two idiots didn’t know a bull from a cow.

When they sat down to a plate of beef stew Malky poked around his plate suspiciously, picking out each lump of meat from the vegetables with his fingers. There was a stunned silence for a second.