My first plays were pantomimes, first with a modern twist on an original tale, then adaptations of Peter Pan, A Little Princess and The Snow Queen, then my own stories, mostly inspired by wherever I thought would be a fun place to set it. For both pupils and parents, they were a highlight of the Christmas term. The lead roles went through the whole play, and those were older pupils who rehearsed in their lunchtimes and after school; there were also whole-class choruses who appeared in only one or two scenes, and one lesson a week of each of my English classes in the Christmas term was used for rehearsing these. Pupils who didn’t want to act were promptly pressed into service as stage managers and crew and lighting operators, and some of my best actors also had to leap up and down from the stage to take their place in the band. I had wonderful colleagues to support me: Carol Jamieson, our talented, enthusiastic music teacher; Bill Swift, our woodwork teacher who didn’t blink even at a request for a large shark to be carried like an upside-down canoe by two pupils, and Drina Hughson, our HE teacher, who made all our beautiful costumes. Then there was Peter Moncrieff, the gym teacher who devised the spectacular trampoline routine for one of the primary classes to do as a welcome home for Cinderella’s father ... The last week of the Christmas term was when we put it all together; there was a dress rehearsal on Tuesday, a matinee to other schools on Wednesday, and the big public performance on Thursday evening. It was all such fun!

The photograph shows the head of the 21-person dragon in The Changeling Princess.

Here’s one of the simpler examples, a hopelessly old-fashioned Western, in which the villainous Greenholm Malk (the council leader at the time was Malcolm Green) and his bunch of cowboys are determined to take over the innocent village of Littleaith. I’d be delighted if any drama groups out there wanted to use it – do let me know, and I’ll grub around in the puddens of my computer for useful props lists, scene changes list etc. Bill made us a most beautiful half-stagecoach flat (it’s amazing what can be achieved with 8x4ft of hardboard), the Cactus were a work of art, and as Country music’s really popular here in Shetland, the audience joined in enthusiastically with that well-known standard, ‘Sheep in the Heart of Tresta’. Tamara and Ribeenie echo the very popular Radio Shetland old-lady duo Tamar and Beenie.

Script: Shootout at Littleaith

The Changeling Princess, on sale from DramaWorks, was a return to fairy-tale land. It stars Rosalba, the princess who’s so bullied by her snooty brother and sister that she’s developed a stammer. When she decides to run away, disguised as a page boy, she meets a dragon (a Chinese-style dragon played by the whole of S1) and a band of robbers, and develops her confidence at last.