On the night of the Christmas concert there was not a spare seat in the hall. It was a frosty night full of stars with a bomber’s moon lighting the sky but so far Scotland had been spared the blitzing feared for its cities and ports. The blackouts were carefully in place nevertheless. The children were herded into the classrooms to change into their outfits and chitter in the cold.

The infants started off with a pixie dance to the tune of the ‘Hi, Ho!’ music from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. The Juniors took a nautical theme and danced the Sailor’s Hornpipe and sang ‘Jolly Jack Tar’. There were carols for the audience to join in, recitations and Scottish dances, the homely mixture-maxture Stratharvar had come to love and expect from its pupils. Netta’s group did their best but the staging was cramped and clubs kept slipping at the wrong moment, plus bits kept falling off their costumes much to their embarrassment. Everyone clapped politely but Netta thought they were more like a herd of clumsy elephants than the Women’s Rural League of Health and Beauty. She stood at the back after the interval, curious to see if the ‘evaporees’ could produce anything better.

For all they were just from a rough city school it was not a bad showing: a boy jangling on the piano, a lad with bagpipes, and another with an accordion. A dark-haired girl with pigtails and a funny-sounding name sang ‘But it’s, oh, that A’m longin’ for my ainfolk…’ with such sweetness that there was not a dry eye in the hall. Then Wilma exploded on to the stage in lipstick with her Persil-white hair tied up with two huge paper ribbons, looking like a doll with rouged cheeks. Her costume was a glittery two-piece bolero and shorts, the sort gypsies wore all covered with glittery sequins – a little too much on the skimpy side for Netta’s liking. She sang or rather shouted ‘On the Good Ship Lollipop’, twirling and birling like Shirley Temple. Then she smiled and sweetly curtsied, before reciting:

‘One, two, three alearie

I saw Wallace Beery

Sitting on his bumbalearie

Kissing Shirley Temple!’

Afterwards springing into a routine of handstands and back flips, arches and split and rollovers, ending with her legs folded over her ears in front of her. They all gasped at her contortions and she had the gall to smile through it all as if it was easy-peasy! That put Netta’s back up. How could she feel superior to someone who could do all that with just arms and legs?

‘That bairn must be made o’ India rubber,’ said a wifie on the back row.