It was on a Sunday in summer many years ago, during the singing of the hymn 'Jesus bids us shine', that I cut off the cherries from the hat of my Sunday School teacher.

I see it all - the hot afternoon, the dressmaking scissors, the undercurrent of stifled expectancy among the little girls on the back row, the Ostrich looming above us as she rose to sing, the black cherries wobbling from a green cotton stalk.

We called her the Ostrich, but her real name was Miss Clara Sproxton. She was tall and thin with an unusually long neck. She seemed, to her unresponsive class, very high and removed. Lately, our previous teacher, the adored Miss Thirtle, had astonished us by getting married. It never occurred to us, in those youthful summers, that any teacher of ours should ever marry. We thought of them as particularly permanent, bustling us, Sunday after Sunday, through two hours of hymn singing, text reading and whispered admonishment.

Jolly Miss Thirtle had been quite different. She had even taken part in the three-legged race during the Sunday School Sports. So perhaps it was not surprising that a certain stiff politeness tinged with hostility, greeted the Ostrich's overtures. On very hot Sundays she wore a dawn alpaca costume and a leghorn straw hat trimmed with artificial cherries and black velvet ribbon. Miss Thirtle, too, had worn cherries on her hat. I think it must have been because of this acute reminder that we decided to rid ourselves of the Ostrich's at the first opportunity.

I was a timid child, so I can only suppose that the idea of the cherry cutting came from my intrepid friend, Lily Mars. For it was she, I remember, who put the scheme darkly before me as we idled through the leafy suburbs towards home. It was clear that our strategic position was very favourable. Miss Sproxton always sat on the end seat of the row in front at the back of the Sunday School. Even now I wonder that she ever allowed the less stable section of her class - we sat immediately behind her - to occupy so advantageous a position in the rear.

Lily had thought of everything. I was to bring to Sunday School my mother's large cutting-out scissors - the ones with the jagged edges - and the bag in which I kept my dancing shoes. Lily was to hold it open to receive the fallen cherries. While the remainder of the class sang the hymn as loudly as possible, I was to stand on the seat of my chair and snip quickly and quietly. On no account was I to tug or pull. Lily's assurance that I, rather than any of the other stupid little things, was fitted for the deed, filled me with pride and answering determination. I had no other desire, at that time, than to please and be commanded by the bright and daring Lily Mars.

How I remember that tense summer afternoon - the green varnished walls, and the smell of newly washed hair. I can see the rows of little girls in crisp dresses and straw hats, some with streamers dangling to the waist. I can remember the touch of the hard, hot scissors hidden between the pages of my hymn book, the mixed  feelings of  excitement and horrible   guilt as I with-  

drew them, the stir among the little girls as they shuffled to their feet to sing the last hymn.

And as I climbed on the chair seat, bravely prepared for action, I thought, as I went through the final spasm of conscience, how the scissors looked very much like a crocodile's mouth, when the jaws closed with a snap on the stalk of the Ostrich's cherries. All about me there was the shrill outburst of singing as the plunder dropped noiselessly into the shoe bag:

'Jesus bids us shine with a pure clean light,

Like a little can--del burning in the night

In this world of darkness so let us shine,

You in your small corner and I in mine...'

I shall never forget the fervent singing of that hymn with its meticulous and beautifully rounded rendering of the word 'candle', nor the flushed cheeks and the ten pairs of eyes along the back row brightly alive to the awfulness - and delight - of so daring a conspiracy.

When Sunday School was over Lily Mars suggested that we should stow the bunch of cherries - it was essential that they should be got rid of as soon as possible for our sense of guilt was now becoming something of a burden - into the thickest hedge we could find on our walk home to tea.

The plan did not prove as easy as we had hoped for; surprisingly enough, the number of gardens enclosed by railings far out-weighed those with really thick hedges. A thin hedge was not to be thought of, for did not the Ostrich, also, take the same road home as ourselves? Supposing at this moment she should turn the corner, wearing her leghorn straw hat, to walk past Lily Mars and myself struck dumb with agitation and remorse, the bag, hiding the cherries, most painfully in evidence?

It was a disquieting thought and drove us without further search or delay into flinging the bag and the cherries over the high wall of Mr Dumbarton's vegetable garden. Lily Mars said it was a jolly good throw, anyway.

If Miss Sproxton still lives in her quiet suburban road she must be a very old lady now. Even then, as members of her Sunday School class, we thought her old, although she could hardly have reached forty. Lily Mars and I have reason to remember her as exceedingly kind and generous. She went on wearing the same straw hat though all the summer Sundays but she never spoke to the little girls about the loss of her cherries. If the culprit was known to her - and an inner voice assured me that she was - the Ostrich kept the secret well.

Perhaps she considered it retribution enough that each Sunday we should look in vain - how beautifully it would have eased our consciences to see it - for a new bunch of cherries to adorn the spot we had so untimely bereft.

I like to think that she soon forgave me for I have never, even yet, quite forgiven myself.