“They’re picking the Queen the day” shouted the eleven year old girl excitedly before leaving for school. Being gently, but smilingly, rebuked by her parent, “Go awa tae the school, whaur will they hae a red haired Queen”? As she went on her way to the Grange School, which towered above the street where she lived, she probably wondered just who would be chosen that day to be Queen?
Not being party to the actual event of choosing the main characters or having a remote idea of what was taking part in the ‘Qually” as we called the primary seven class, we were all about to find out. The usual Friday treat for us was getting out of school that wee bit early, so as we made our way home the window’s of the houses we passed were open wide and ‘wifies’ were shaking their dusters while their men folk were tending their early spring gardening tasks. All the talk was about the fact that Sadie Potter was the newly elected Queen. Yes, the wee red haired lassie who had been dreaming about it in the morning, had been chosen by her classmates to be Bo’ness Fair Queen of 1946. She had the added esteem of being the first in the town for over 6 years and after the cessation of the hostilities of World War II. That day she became the most well known girl in Bo’ness.
