The Dixeys left a gap behind them after that first exciting Christmas of the phoney war. One by one the other city children drifted back north. The farmhouse seemed silent and chill without their incessant banter and mischief. Netta and Wilma exchanged letters for a while but once the bombings started in earnest the Dixeys moved away and they lost contact for years as all of them got on with their growing up.

May 1949, Friday

Netta could feel the cramp in her thigh and thumped her leg on the loft boards. Why was Dixie’s handwritten programme shoved in with the gas mask? Had Peg put it there or Father in a clearout?

Those few months with Wilma had loosened Netta’s tongue and her joints. In fact, she could still do a mean cartwheel and one of these days would shock Gus on the shore with a back arch!

The Dixeys had opened her eyes to another tougher schooling where language was rich and fruity and living for the moment in blitz and bombings took nerves and courage. The colours of wartime had been so dreich with all that camouflage and blackout, gun-smoke grey and khaki everywhere. Yet Wilma with her red ribbons, Persil hair and rainbow sequins had brought sparkle to Stratharvar for a while. The evacuees who followed in their footsteps to Brigg Farm, were ground down by the Glasgow blitz and enforced separations. They never shone so brightly as that first pair.

Vida Bloom and her son Arnold came next. Vida left behind a gift so precious it had saved Netta on many an occasion. How strange that people could cross your path for the briefest of moments and yet leave their mark on you for the rest of your life. There was no forgetting those two, but was there anything tangible left her of their brief stay?

*

Peg clattered in the kitchen. Once woken she could not go back to sleep; an hour early in the morning was always worth two later. She liked to catch the house to herself and sit down with a pot of tea before the daily demands took a toll on her temper. The work of a farmer’s wife was never finished. What time she took for herself had to be pared from all the chores of the day, gathered like shavings. They had not had a holiday since that honeymoon weekend in Edinburgh. Angus was never comfortable away from the dairy. He did not trust his men to do the jobs properly.