The new broom, in the shape of rector Ian Bendall, has issued a decree on the occasion of today’s speech day in the local church in Crieff. “For the information of those ladies who wish to attend, it is customary to wear hats,” he has ruled.

Local mothers who have been around longer than the rector are not taking kindly to being told what to wear. Even the church doesn’t expect ladies in hats these days. “We’re bloody well not going to,” several say in language of which the heidie (as they don’t say in Crieff) would not approve. One threatened to turn up in a balaclava.

Presumably this reversion to a bygone age is what Bendall had in mind when he wrote in his welcome to the school’s website that “those of us who greet new pupils each session still try to achieve the excellence sought by the founder and by succeeding generations”.