Val was getting up early too, doing his paper round. He never failed to be there and Mr Arby said he was a good boy.

Sometimes, he longed to stay in bed and not to go out into the smog or frost or rain, but the thought of twelve shillings a week spurred him on. He was saving up to buy a tent so that next summer he could go camping in the country.

With a tent and a bike he would have the freedom of the whole world. The faithful George would go with him. Already they had made a plan to join the navy together as soon as they could.

Mum had claimed part of Val’s money to pay for his new shoes. "It's not fair," he grumbled. "I'm not working for shoes."

"Then you can go barefoot," said Mum, laughing. "Suppose I kept my money for myself?"

Doreen had to rise early too, because she had a long journey to the Green Coats School, and even when she came back late in the evening, she still had a great deal of homework.

Len was quite happy because Mum had promised to buy him a parrot for Christmas, as that was the only sort of pet that Mr Sprot allowed in the flats. "I'll teach him to talk," said Len.

"Let's hope when Len's got his parrot," said Mum, "that he'll stop bringing things home. I mean that with black kids and stray dogs, this place is the Lost Property Office."

Nobody asked Dad if he were happy. Maybe he did not know if he were or not. But he was probably quite content as long as he could be with his family, and go along to his usual corner at the "Cock" in the evenings.

Auntie Glad seemed very happy indeed. When she and Uncle William came over to tea on a Sunday, Uncle William looked fatter and more beaming than ever and Auntie Glad had never gone back to wearing her black cap! Aggie had now made it up with her brother.

"Though I wish she hadn't," said Auntie Glad naughtily to Mum. "Because she's always round our place telling me how to make Bill comfortable, as if I didn't know. Still there's a bone in every marriage, and if Bill wants to see her, he's welcome."

But what about Ally? Was she happy too? Not all the time unfortunately. Take, for instance, the school pantomime.

Ally was sure she would play the principal girl.

"Look, I'm very sorry, Gloria," Miss Fleetwood had said when they were casting. "But you really are too tall. Linda is the only one with the voice and the legs for principal boy, and you're half a head taller than she is. I don't think we can make you an Ugly Sister, because the boys will do them.

So that leaves the Good Fairy."

Ally's eyes filled with tears. "Oh, Miss Fleetwood, you almost promised me I’d be Cinderella. I don't want to be the Good Fairy, that's a soppy part."

"But, Ally," said Miss Fleetwood, "I couldn't help your spourting up so fast, could I? Come on now, be a good girl and make the best of it. Anyhow, you'll have a lovely dress, all silver and white and a crown on your head. I think we can fix you a wand with an electric battery so the star at the top lights up. You'll be able to do a dance and you'll get a special spotlight every time you come on."

Ally blinked back her tears. It wasn't fair! Not even a special spotlight would make up for being Fairy Godmother. She had always wanted to play Cinderella, and had imagined herself in a beautiful gown at the Court Ball, with the parents thinking how lovely Ally Berners was! That would have been true glamour. In this panto, the Fairy spent a lot of her time dressed up as an ugly old witch. She was not transformed into a real fairy until late in the second act.

Ally went to Brian about her disappointment, but he could not take it seriously. "It's only a kid’s play at school,' he said, with the grandeur of someone who is just leaving the Grammar School and perhaps going to London University.

"You don't understand," said Ally, as they were walking back from the pictures. "Suppose a talent scout should just happen to be in the audience. You never know. And if I did a really good Cinderella, I might be taken off to Hollywood and become a star."

"Nonsense!" cried Brian derisively, "Can you see any talent scout going to the Church School panto? Be your age, Al."

But Ally persisted. "He might be a parent, you never know. I ought to get a chance. None of the other girls can act for toffee."

Even if the school did not contain many good actors, it was thinking and talking of nothing else but the panto. The boys in the carpentry class were making the scenery and the art classes were painting it. Even the needlework classes were not running up the usual overalls and shoe bags.-Rehearsals filled every spare moment. Luckily, Mr. Browne, the headmaster and producer, was a very talented man and knew quite a lot about directing. During the last two years be had managed to raise a school orchestra and taught it to play a few tunes. Miss Fleetwood with the help of some of the other teachers had fashioned wonderful costumes from odds and ends.