A cream cake in his sticky fingers Mick rounded the corner of the street and met Toddy en route for the school. Something was obviously amiss for Toddy was not his usual cheery self. Had Giselle chastised him about our heroes' behaviour the previous night? Did he have a hangover? No: “This morning I thought I'd finally made friends with that bloody dog, but when I came down for breakfast it growled at me again!” To add to his troubles he had also been bitten by another dog, and run over by two bikes, one ridden by an old lady.

By now, Len had decided that it would be better to practise the rant out in the corridor so AUS we went, pausing to watch the magnificent display of sword dancing ‘diddle-de-de-di-de-di-de’ - then off we went, ranting up and down the corridor, around the lockers, behind the stairs. We stopped to let the kids get their breath back, and Mick turned to Alan “How about ranting up the stairs?” “You're on!”, and away they went, upwards. About halfway up, they heard a shuffling noise behind them, and tuned to see the kids all following! Ach So - - they wanted to do some more, but first we persuaded them to get back on the ground floor before they broke their legs.

The sticks were found in the temporary possession of one of the girls, but then Toddy declined to use them and danced on with two commoner's sticks. Soon the air was ringing with the sound of Len's melodeon, the stamping of feet and the cries of ‘AUF’, then CRASH the sticks flew from the girl's grasp, just missing Toddy's head - ‘Here, you are a cry-baby, have them back!’.

On entering the staff room Mick and Toddy joined the other Hot Toddies, Maggie and Alan (II), for a quick practice of N.W. Clog, which helped them loosen up for the gruelling session with the kids. The lesson began, of course, with the immensely popular N.W. Clog, the Hot Toddies forming up in their own set. Toddy himself almost fainted when he discovered his own personal set of leader's sticks missing. “No, no, I can't go on without them.” -obviously they contain some magical power which enable the average Morris Man to ‘rant like a good-un’, and not like a raving lunatic.

Chapter 7: Thursday September 29th, 1977
“DAS ****ING ’ELL!!”